Former PAS president Fadzil Noor's son, Faiz Fadzil, has listed five main differences between the Islamist party back then and the party today as led by Abdul Hadi Awang.

Most importantly, he said, the current PAS was no longer at the forefront of opposing BN.

"Instead, it supports Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's leadership, even though he is facing all sorts of scandals.

"PAS has become a lifeline for Umno," Faiz said in an interview with DAP organ, Roketkini.

Faiz, who is also Amanah Youth deputy chief, said PAS recently revealed their inclination towards Umno when they supported the passage of the Anti-Fake News Bill in Parliament.

The Dewan Rakyat had yesterday passed the second reading of the bill with 123 votes for and 64 votes against. All 11 PAS lawmakers in attendance voted in support of the bill.

According to Faiz, PAS also no longer appears to be an Islamist party that was still relevant to the country, as it was using religious and racial sentiments even though the real problems plaguing the rakyat today pertain to cost of living.

"Cost of living (issues) stem from the weakness of Umno and BN's administration.

"There is no other way (to solve this) except to change the current administration not by becoming an adviser.

"If PAS had advised the current government, surely GST would have been abolished and corruption, which is wrong in the eyes of religion, would have been reduced.

"PAS' attitude now seems as if it is no longer a party which fights for Islam, obeys the syariah or acknowledges the reality of a multi-racial Malaysian society," he said.

Faiz said PAS has become more of a race-based party which, unfortunately, played up racial and religious sentiments.

"Thirdly, PAS (back then) was trying to get out of the religious sphere and do more to engage non-Muslim representatives and organisations.

"But now, in playing up racial and religious sentiments, it shows that PAS has closed their space for such engagements," he said.

The fourth difference, Faiz (photo) said, was that PAS had reversed its political direction which had always been aimed at defeating Umno and BN.

He said PAS had always been at the forefront of opposition coalitions in the past such as the Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah, which was PAS' coalition with Semangat 46, Berjasa, Hamim and Kimma in 1990.

This was followed by Barisan Alternatif in 1998, and subsequently Pakatan Rakyat.

Tricked by Umno

"PAS' fight has always led it to seek cooperation with all opposition parties with the goal of wresting power from Umno and BN.

"But when PAS made the decision to split from its fellow opposition parties, it showed that PAS no longer wanted to wrest power from them.

"In 1990, PAS led Kelantan and in 1999, Terengganu. The year 1999 was PAS' best record at the parliamentary level, winning 27 seats, but then this dropped to only seven seats in the 11th general election.

"Now that PAS has left Pakatan, it will deteriorate again," he said.

The fifth difference, Faiz said, was that PAS no longer knew what issues to fight for in the context of the reality on the ground.

"They used to fight for hudud then during Ustaz Fadzil's time, they focused on a welfare system and now today they have gone back to the so-called hudud with Act 355 and ended up being finally tricked by Umno," he said.

Besides that, he said PAS now also displayed traits of extremism as if it wanted to go back to the time of 'Amanat Hadi' of 1981.

"Amanat Hadi was a symbol of extremism in the minds of PAS leaders.

"By defending that Amanat until now, PAS wants to become an extremist party which does not befriend any other party except Umno," he said.