Five years ago, when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad envisaged a sophisticated, fibre-optic connected Malaysia to serve as a regional IT hub, economic growth backed by the inflow of foreign capital and expertise was his main priority.

The premier considered all possible scenarios and the impact of this ambitious project but the last thing on his mind was that PAS would benefit from it.

After all, to Mahathir, it is just an opposition party which has long been identified with rural Malay-Muslims wearing skull caps whose sole interest is religion and not science or technology.

But the premier has been proven wrong. With the recruitment of more urban professionals in recent years, PAS is now participating in the virtual world due to its growing fleet of IT experts.

Realising that the audience is limited due to the low Internet penetration in the country, PAS set up an IT unit to perform a two-fold task — to cater information for urban readers who presumably have Internet access, and to spread the technology to the have-less segment of society.

The unit is headed by party secretary-general Nasharuddin Mat Isa. After a two-year trial and error process, PAS is now slowly reaping the fruits of its labour.

Last week, the PAS' 48th annual general meeting in Kelantan, attended by thousands of delegates, successfully demonstrated that IT was about the best means to effect changes.

Video conference

One example was the hour-long video conference in English between PAS leaders and Abu Ubaidah, chairperson of the London-based Muslim Association of Britain.

The images were projected on screens next to the stage for the delegates.

Despite being continents apart, Abu talked about various international issues affecting the Muslim world from a cyber centre in Oxford Street and took questions from PAS president Fadzil Mohd Noor and his deputy Abdul Hadi Awang who were in a religious training centre in the Kelantan capital of Kota Bharu.

Among the hot topics discussed was the revival of Islam in Europe, the impact of the Sept 11 attacks on Muslim countries, and the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Several Malaysian students, studying in the United Kingdom, also participated in the session. They recounted their experience there and expressed concern over "the government's repressive measures" against Muslim movements at home.

According to the schedule, Muslim scholar Dr Yusof Qardhawi from Qatar and the Palestinian Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin were supposed to take part in the video conference but this did not materialise due to technical problems.

But despite this, it was clear that PAS delegates were satisfied, if not impressed, with the session.

The video conference became a topic of discussion over the days.

Throughout the three-day AGM, younger party leaders such as Nasharuddin, Youth chief Mahfuz Omar, his deputy Salahuddin Ayub, Muslimat (women's wing) secretary Nuridah Mohd Salleh, took turns to answer questions from party supporters and observers via an online 'chat room' for an hour every evening.

Apart from this, reports on the AGM were updated on the party organ website — Harakahdaily.net —, while the proceedings were also broadcasted live on the site via audio format which the party called, RadioPas.

Nasharuddin said the utilisation of IT at this AGM was not a "show-off" but an effort to tell members that "we, too, should catch up with the world and always find effective ways to get our message to the people".

He said Harakahdaily.net saw an all-time high of 350,000 hits during the AGM and added that this was "promising but there's still a lot of work to be done."

He was referring to the great disparity in terms of Internet access between the urban and rural areas, as evident in the statistics which revealed that 80 percent of the hits came from cities.

"We will continue to explore the possibilities in the IT world, this is not just for PAS but it is also one way to help the government to bridge the digital divide in the country," he said.

The call for PAS to become more IT savvy seems to have generated a positive response from members thus far, at least from the new recruits comprising mainly of urban professionals.

Civil servants

Amir Ramadzan Ibrahim, the man who designed and administrates Harakahdaily.net said that a recent readership survey showed that 80 percent of the readers hold diplomas and above, while five percent earn more than RM100,000 per annum.

What should be alarming to the government is Amir's claim that 40 percent of the readers were civil servants.

Like Amir, a Kelantanese Islamic studies graduate who is self-taught in the IT field and currently resides in Kuala Lumpur, many PAS members are doing their bit for the party's IT development at a minimal cost or at times completely free.

PAS has also set up IT units at the state-level to expose their middle-ranking leaders and members to basic things such as the e-mail to enhance communication between the central headquarters and grassroots.

At the AGM last week, a campaign was launched, calling on all PAS divisions across the country to work towards having at least one computer with free Internet access at their offices.

As Harakahdaily.net becomes increasingly popular, one important aspect needs to be addressed — security.

Amir said though the website has not been hacked before, there have been attempts to enter the system by various unknown quarters.

"We will definitely have to beef up our security measures," he said.

Equally important is the content, said Harakahdaily.net editor-in-chief Zulkifli Sulong. "The website is bilingual &38212 Bahasa Melayu and English — and we are trying to increase the number of English articles as these have been well received by the readers."

Meanwhile, Nasharuddin believes that the emergence of Harakahdaily.net and its kind have affected the sales of the so-called mainstream media which have long been dominated by information from the government's perspective.

"You can see that the circulation of many newspapers have gone down quite drastically in recent years," said the party secretary-general.

He was confident that despite its limited reach now, Harakahdaily.net will thrive given enough time and resources.

If the party could easily raise over RM100,000 of donations from its delegates at the AGM in a matter of days, the financial commitment towards IT development appears to be secured.

Censorship threat

The only problem that may arise is a political one.

When Mahathir launched the Multimedia Super Corridor in 1996, he promised that there will be no censorship on the Internet as part of a package to attract foreign investment into the multi-billion ringgit 15-by-50 km strip south of Kuala Lumpur that runs from the Petronas Twin Towers to the KL International Airport.

But due to the mushrooming of pro-reform and opposition-run websites since the sacking of now jailed politician Anwar Ibrahim, the government seems to be having second thoughts about its word.

Last year, the government admitted that the freedom of statement as espoused on the Internet had backfired and thus hinted that it may impose new measures ranging from 'content guideline' to amending existing media laws to cover the Internet.

There has yet to be anything concrete from the government but the world is watching.

And until then, PAS would still be touring around the country, plugging in computer cables and wires, and making itself the ambassador of IT to its members.

Tong Yee Siong is a member of the malaysiakini team