Some 400 PAS members and leaders from three PAS divisions in Selangor today announced their resignations from either the party or posts they hold and pending  their eventual  move to Gerakan Harapan Baru (GHB).

They include 183 members from the Kota Raja division, 227 members from the Kapar division and three from the Klang division.

Vice-chief of the Kota Raja division Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud said the 'resign now, join later' move by the office-bearers was adopted to avoid chaos from hitting PAS once GHB became a political party and more PAS members left to join it.

In Kota Raja, division chief Jaafar Samsuddin and deputy presidents Norhalim Sirome and Siti Mariah Mahmud announced their resignations form party posts at a press conference.

Nine PAS Kota Raja branch heads also relinquished their party positions.

Joining them were Kapar division committee member Razak Abdul Rashid and Klang division committee member Abdul Rashih Abdul Latiff.

GHB said today's mass resignations from the party or positions was the beginning of a spate of them in Selangor from today till the end of the month.

"The Shah Alam and Kelana Jaya divisions will do the same thing tomorrow and two days later respectively," claimed Izham Hashim, coordinator of Selangor GHB.

However, the resigning office-bearers will remain as party members until GHB officially becomes a political party.

They will only then join the new entity which will automatically terminate their PAS membership, said Izham in a press conference.

‘Need to form a caretaker committee’

Izham expected the intervention from the party leadership in the Kelana Jaya division, because as many as two-thirds of the committee members may quit, and the party needs at least one-third of committee members to conduct a meeting.

“Thus, I expect the party need to form a caretaker committee in the division,” he said.

While he has no clue how many will resign in Selangor, he expected more members from Johor will quit than in Selangor.

Beside Siti Mariah,Sepang parliamentarian Mohamed Hanipa Maidin, Shah Alam parliamentarian Khalid Samad, Hulu Klang state assemblyperson Saari Sungib and Morib state assemblyperson Hasnul Baharuddin are expected to relinquish their party positions soon.

However, Siti Mariah ( photo ) will not resign as a parliamentarian. And those who join GHB will not resign their official positions appointed by the state government, such as councillors.

GHB, a splinter entity formed after PAS progressive group was sidelined in the June party election, is expected to form a new opposition coalition with DAP and PKR.

Siti Mariah said GHB will continue to struggle for the implementation of hudud as part of the Islaimic struggle instead of being its number one agenda.

Party president Abdul Hadi Awang had said that hudud is just a small part of Islamic struggle and there must be consultations to get things done, she said.

“It had became number one struggle in PAS, which led to the break up (of Pakatan),” she said, adding that the issue had been mishandled and the public had misunderstood.

“This is not the number one agenda right now for GHB, it requires wisdom as to how and when to implement it,” she said, adding that this is a political decision.

Meanwhile, PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man denied the mass resignation would led to the dissolving of party divisions or branches.

“Our party’s constitution allows party activities to go on,” he said.

“Just like a series of continuous waves, PAS has the resource to replace the losing waves,” he said.

He thanked the contributions of those who had resigned and said the party respects their right to do so.

“This may not be the best solution, but it’s one of the solutions, nonetheless,” he said.