The 52nd PAS Youth muktamar ended slightly before midnight last night with a series of resounding salutations of God is Great led by newly re-elected chief Nasruddin Hassan, before ending with a prayer.

However the rest of the proceeding was less cohesive, with most of the delegates who took the stage to debate their chief’s police speech taking pot shots at Nasruddin and his leadership, accusing him of losing touch with youth and neglecting several states like Sabah and Malacca.

muktamar pas youth 020611 Delegates also hammered the Islamic party’s youth leadership for failing to reach out and get in touch with youth in general and failing to rekindle once close ties with students. This has caused a disconnect with youth who even seem to start to get close to the more strident efforts by BN and Umno, and pushing away students who once made up the bulk of PAS Youth recruits.

Amongst the problems pointed out are the high-minded and big picture issues that the leadership, one delegate said, are fond of pursuing, alienating the youths with their simpler problems.

“It is not difficult to attract the young, all we have to do is talk to them, listen to their issues and then fight for their issues, God willing, they will be with us,” the delegate said, though he claimed that the leadership is not doing any of this.

Most of the debate which took place in the morning and afternoon sessions yesterday took this critical tone, though one or two did defend the central leadership with their heavy commitments, asking that the youth in the state, divisions and branches to pick up the slack instead.    

Subdued debate

However, things were a bit subdued and very slow to pick up when it came to debating the three motions picked for discussion in the evening session. The permanent chairman had to even call in the delegates several times before they re-entered the hall.

He even had to name the exco members one by one, calling them into the hall.

But even when the debate started in earnest, hardly any of the delegates seemed keen to debate the issues put forth and most who did so were at most lacklustre if not totally without conviction.

Only two stood up to debate the first motion on the general election, which was then rejected by the assembled delegates out of hand. However, interested parties who were unsatisfied that the motion did not receive support, attempted to have a recount of the vote.

This was despite the motion containing a controversial clause asking for seats allocated to Pakatan Rakyat components whose elected representatives have jumped ship to be given to other component members.

The same pattern followed for the other two motions.

NONE Nothing major was discussed in the debate, mostly its nit-picking over points within the motions without much solid arguments or bigger issues discussed. None of the usual arsenal of ulama vs Erdogan or the ‘Unity’ government issue was even touched on.

However, things took a slight upswing when Nasruddin ( right ) himself took the stage to sum up the debate. He took on his detractors head-on, giving his reasoning in answer to some of their criticism of his leadership.

Working the crowd in a show of charisma, Nasruddin managed to give reassurances, if not totally swinging them into his camp. He ended his speech with a bout of Umno-bashing, recounting the thuggery of the Malay party’s representatives during the recent anti-Lynas protest in Pahang. He concluded by reiterating his policy speech that the time has come for them to throw Umno and BN out of Putrajaya for we can longer have these kind of government.

“ Jom Ubah ,” he said, making a play on the name of his new programme to deliver the message on the need for change to youth.

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