Pan-Malayan Islamic Party

The PAS-Malaysian Islamic Party (Malay: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia), commonly known as PAS, is an Islamist political party in Malaysia. PAS's electoral base is in Malaysia's rural and conservative north. The party has governed the northern state of Kelantan two times (1959-1977 and 1990-now) and has also, in the past, formed governments in Kedah (2008-2013) and Terengganu (1959-1962 and 1999-2004). The party currently holds 14 of the 222 seats in the federal House of Representatives and has elected parliamentarians or state assembly members in ten of the country's 13 states.

The party was founded in 1951 by Muslim clerics in the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). In the party's early decades, it fused Islamist and Malay nationalist ideologies and entrenched itself as one of the country's strongest opposition parties. From 1974 to 1978, PAS joined the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, but has otherwise been in opposition at the federal level for the entirety of its history. The 1980s saw the party taken over by a group of Muslim clerics ("ulama"), who shifted the party's ideology away from Malay nationalism towards a more radical brand of Islamism. After poor electoral performances, the party moderated in the 1990s, with an increase in progressive leaders. In the 2015 PAS Muktamar, the Ulama wing called for a total out of progressives, following which the progressive leaders lost almost all party positions. The progressive faction later formed Parti Amanah Negara (AMANAH) and with the two main Malaysian opposition parties, PKR, DAP formed Pakatan Harapan. In the following year, PAS Secretary-General Takiyuddin Hassan revealed that PAS had lost 200,000 members in the year following the 2015 PAS Muktamar.

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