KUALA SELANGOR, June 5 — Shell-shocked progressive PAS leaders put on a brave face today at the party’s muktamar, or annual congress, after a near clean-sweep of top positions in the Islamist party’s elections last night.

Expressing hope that the new ulama-dominated line-up of the party will still seek to engage with non-Muslim voters, the group urged the public to give the clergy faction a chance to prove their worth.

“The delegates have made their decision and we have to accept it though we are taken aback by the results. This is normal in any contest, but what’s important is that the winners continue strengthening the party while those who lost, I feel have already given their best,” PAS elections director Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli told reporters.

“Now I got to go inside and pretend that I’m happy,” said the Kuala Krai MP, before making his way into the Kuala Selangor Indoor Stadium to attend the muktamar.

The clergy class, or ulama, trounced the party progressives in a near-total takeover of PAS last night, winning 22 out of the 23 posts open for contest in the Islamist party’s central working committee.

“Maybe they are more progressive than us… give them a chance,” PAS’ legal and human rights bureau chief Mohamed Hanipa Maidin told reporters jokingly.

Meanwhile, PAS research centre director Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the progressives have always been a “big-hearted” bunch and do not bear any ill-will over their ousting.

Instead, he added that the dominance of the clergy faction is a sign of a more interesting development in both PAS’ and the country’s political landscape.

“We are big hearted…we have made it very clear but they (delegates) have chosen that way (voting in ulamas) so be it.

“We will give them a chance, but we will see. The dynamics are very interesting. There is never a dull moment in Malaysian politics,” the former PAS central working committee member added.

Dr Hatta said the progressives will continue to reach out to the non-Muslims and help them understand developments in PAS, especially party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s insistence to implement the Islamic penal law of hudud.

“I really hope that the current committee will continue the good work hopefully in connecting PAS to the non-Malays…there should not be anything less than what has been done before,” he said.

“Well I’m sure they will be able to (connect with non-Muslims) as well … that’s the new leadership’s business, so they have to sort it out … give them a chance,” Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said, when asked if the new party leadership can reach out to non-Muslim voters without the popular progressives.

The watershed win last night saw PAS’s incumbent president Hadi back at the helm of the 64-year-old Islamist party, that has been for the past few months wracked by a so-called faction war.