I refer to the malaysiakini report Young Turks get aggressive on reforms . Now that Nasharuddin Mat Isa has thwarted the attempt by the old guard to replace him with the conservative Harun Taib for the number two post in PAS, he should set his sights on getting younger voters to be attracted to the Islamic party in order to win big in the next polls.

With his winning for the second time, he can be considered the heir apparent of the present PAS president once the time is right. The party should learn from past mistakes in the last polls when they were overly confident of winning big after their stellar performance in the 1999 polls.

The party only managed to retain Kelantan by a whisker while they lost the oil-rich state of Terengganu and lost heavily in other areas. With due respect to the party, they did not do well in 2004 polls because people wanted to give a chance to the new premier to make a differences after he replaced the old premier.

But phantom voters and a one-sided Elections Commission which favoured the ruling parties plus money dished out to buy votes also caused PAS to lose big in the last polls.

PAS needs to reach out to the Chinese and non-Muslims voters if they want to spread their wings to other states and not be confined to Malay belt areas only. While some pious Malay Muslims are comfortable with the PAS agenda of changing our secular laws to follow hudud law, the party must understand that ours is a multiracial society with different religions.

We would not want our country to be like Saudi Arabia and Iran where the 'mullahs' have the final say on how their nations are run. Not only will non-Muslims not accept Allah swt's law to govern us in our daily life but also a majority of secular Muslims are not comfortable with hudud law.

The next general elections will be a big test for PAS to see whether the young voters - who form the majority of voters in the country - will embrace the party with their Islamic principles or vote for the incumbents again.

Even all the rampant corruption, abuse of power and shortcomings of the present leadership have failed to convince the majority of our voters here to switch camps. The last few by-elections have seen the present government retaining their seats once again.

Yes, the deputy president of PAS needs to reform the party in order for it to be amicable to non- Muslim voters and in order to retain Kelantan and enjoy its past glory. Bread and butter issues are the main priorities of the people here and while the party can preach all the good values which allow good Muslims to go to heaven in the next world, reality is such those who deliver the goods win the votes.

The people's perceptions, especially in the rural areas, is that the present government can deliver development while the oppositions parties can only make noise in august halls.

Even after nearly 50 years of independence, the mindset of the voters is still stuck with the old way of thinking. PAS will face major hurdles in reforming itself if the old guard still have a strong influence. Time is not on their side and one can only wish them the best of luck to do well in the next general elections.