KUALA BESUT, July 19 — PAS played its Islamist card last night ahead of the July 24 battle for Kuala Besut, telling a largely Malay-Muslim crowd here that fighting solely for race rights will not aid them in the afterlife.

The Islamist party flashed its religious credentials as it stepped up the ante against the country’s largest party, Umno, which has been flying in its big guns to the seaside town to campaign for its candidate Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman, a former civil engineer up against PAS local boy and contractor Azlan Yusof.

“Do you think by fighting for the rights of Malays, you can bring (your deeds) into the afterlife?” PAS Spiritual Advisor Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat asked a huge gathering at the Kampung Beris Pak Abu, near the Gong Kedak air force base here.

“Race cannot do anything for you in the afterlife,” he said.

Thousands of PAS supporters, many clad in Baju Melayu, had turned up for the rally after the customary “tarawih” prayers to hear the revered Islamic scholar, speak.

Nik Aziz, who was formerly the mentri besar in neighbouring Kelantan, questioned Umno’s commitment to the struggle of Malays even as he mocked the party name in English — United Malays National Organisation — instead of switching to Malay.

The Malay party had been founded in 1946, before the country’s independence from colonial British rule, but was deregistered in 1988 following a court ruling. Its present incarnation is properly known as Umno Baru.

“Umno has rejected Islam by taking the nationalist route... In the end, even MCA deserted it,” Nik Aziz said, but did not elaborate.

Last week, Nik Aziz delivered a Friday sermon in a mosque in the small village of Kampung Tok Saboh here.

Hundreds of supporters from the surrounding villages turned up to hear his sermon, overcrowding the mosque and causing some to complete their Friday prayers outside.

He had then called for Quran to be the supreme law governing life, since he claimed that it came from the same God which has created the Earth and the universe.

PAS held its rally last night at a rocky ground near the Gong Kedak air force base in order to tap into an important demography in the Kuala Besut constituency.

It is estimated that there are around 1,200 voters from the Gong Kedak air force base, which makes up part of the Kuala Besut state seat’s 17,679 registered voters.

The by-election, a straight fight between PAS’ Azlan 48, and BN’s Tengku Zaihan, 37, was called after the previous assemblyman Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar passed away from lung cancer last month.