Gerakan Harapan Baru (GHB) is getting a lot attention and this include criticisms and insults from its chief opponents, their rivals in PAS.

 

However, GHB pro-tem committee chairman Mohamad Sabu did not feel it necessary to respond to the brickbats hurled by the movement's critics.

 

At the same time, PAS leaders aligned to president Abdul Hadi Awang insisted that they were not threatened by the new party, which will be formed by GHB leaders.

 

They claimed the new party would not last two years, and dismissed it as a "proxy" of DAP, which GHB leaders vehemently denied.

 

Yesterday, Penang PAS commissioner Fauzi Mohd Yusof said the party had only managed to sign up 6,000 new members after its muktamar in Selangor in June.

 

Even Perkasa chief Ibrahim Ali had said sarcastically that he welcome more "frogs" to join GHB, a splinter group from PAS formed by 18 progressive leaders who were defeated in the party’s internal polls in June.

 

"This merely shows that people are concerned about the party. The more criticisms or insults, the bigger this party will be,” Mohamad, or better known as Mat Sabu, said when met in Komtar last night.

 

"If no one cares for this party, it would not be a problem for anyone," he quipped.

 

Mat Sabu, the former PAS deputy chief, was in Komtar to attend a Hari Raya do organised by Persatuan Ummah Sejahtera (Pasma), whose leaders are also members of the new GHB.

 

Also present at the event were Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusof Rawa, PKR leaders including Deputy Chief Minister 1 Rashid Hasnon, state executive councillor and Seberang Jaya assemblyman Dr Afif Bahardin, and Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin.

 

GHB, backed by DAP and PKR, and NGOs such as Pasma, will hold a ceramah in Penang on Aug 8, as part of the movement’s nationwide roadshow which kicked off in Perlis last Sunday.

 

Asked who would be the president of the new party, Mat Sabu replied, "God knows, we will leave it to the party’s meeting".

 

'Progressive Islam' party

 

Mat Sabu was also asked about possible names for the new party, which he declined to reveal beyond saying that the pro-tem committee was toying with words such as 'Progressive Islam', 'Trust' or 'Justice'.

"It all depends on the Registrar of Society's approval of our application for a new party," he said.

 

On pressure by PAS for those planning to form GHB to resign from the party, Mat Sabu said the matter would be determined once the new party was in place.

 

"Until then, I do not want to give any views on this," he told reporters, before leaving for Kuala Lumpur last night.

 

Like the rest of his team, Mat Sabu remains a PAS member until he joins a new party, following which his membership would automatically be terminated.

 

This party is expected to replace PAS in a new coalition with DAP and PKR as Pakatan Rakyat, forged in 2008, no longer exists when PAS delegates at the party’s 61st muktamar decided to cut ties with DAP.