Former PAS vice-president Mahfuz Omar has accused the current party leadership of suffering from "verbal diarrhoea" which was turning off its Muslim support base.

In reference to PAS leaders' ongoing criticisms of Gerakan Harapan Baru, a PAS splinter group, Mahfuz said the leaders were essentially accusing the established NGOs such as Islamic Representative Council (IRC), Jemaah Islah Malaysia (JIM), and Ikram of perpetrating a split in PAS.

"This will only lead to further erosion of Malay Muslim votes for PAS.

"Such action and statements will only hurt the feelings of Ikram members who joined PAS or voted for PAS in every general election, as they are being portrayed by PAS as traitors to the party.

"It does not only affect Ikram but also involve other Islamist groups which feel PAS cannot accept thoughts other than those trained by PAS' current leaders," he said in a statement today.

Harapan Baru is a new entity established by the so-called "progressive" faction in PAS that was routed in the last party leadership election.

It has signalled that it will turn into a political party soon and form a coalition with other opposition parties.

Mahfuz pointed out that many PAS members and leaders were once members of progressive Islamist NGOs before politics, thus it would be unwise to attack these groups now.

"But every word that comes out (from PAS) appears like verbal diarrhoea that requires medication for it to stop," he said.