Three vacant leadership positions and the general election will be among the key issues to be discussed at the PAS general assembly in September.

At a press conference today, Acting PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang however declined to speculate over his choices for the vacant slots saying that the selection of candidates for the president's and deputy president's posts will be up to the local branches.

Asked whether the central committee would be seeking to endorse a 'no contest' rule for the crucial posts, he said that the election will be carried out democratically with branches endorsing who they wish as their leaders.

According to Hadi, the same principles is expected to apply for the newly vacant PAS Youth chief post, following the announcement by Mahfuz Omar that he will not be contesting in September.

"If there's a contest, we hope for healthy competition," said Hadi who is also the menteri besar of Terengganu.

The PAS general assembly will be held from September 11-14 with the Youth meeting held a day earlier.

Resolution for new seats

On the general election issues discussed by the central committee today, Hadi announced that PAS will forward a resolution to Parliament for additional state seats in its strongholds of Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah

"It makes sense for the creation of new seats in these states. Why is it that new seats were created for the states of Johor and Selangor only?" he asked.

"We base our request on the number of voters in the constituencies, just as was done in Johor and Selangor where new seats were created because the number of voters in these areas had increased."

The PAS president also said plans are underway to transfer members from old constituencies to those new constituencies created through the redelineation exercise passed in April.

"At the same time, we will ensure that the electoral rolls are clean - this has been the work of the Barisan Nasional for a long time, who depend on phantom voters during elections."

In addition, Hadi said that Barisan Alternatif discussions in upholding the straight-fight policy will likely centre around newly created constituencies.

Islamic-state blueprint

On the issue of the Islamic-state blueprint recently endorsed by the party's consultative council (majlis syura), Hadi said that details of the document will only be unveiled when "the time is right," as the party intends to develop it as much as possible.

As reported by Singapore Straits Times, the plan will subject all Muslims under hudud law, while non-Muslims are not expected to be governed by it.

The plan was spurred on by the challenge made by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in September, which called on PAS to put down in writing what it meant by an Islamic state.

Hadi said that the party is still awaiting to translate the document "in proper layman's language that can be understood by the diverse community of Malaysia, so that they can fully understand the reasons behind the setting up of an Islamic state."

"We also need to translate the document into Chinese, English, and Tamil - we already have these translations within PAS, but we are concerned with the accurate translation, such as the use of proper politics and economics terminology," he added