Utusan Online (4/6/01): Two incumbent Pas vice presidents, Mustafa Ali, Senator Hassan Shukri and Parit Buntar Member of Parliament Datuk Dr Hassan Ali were declared winners for the three posts of vice president at the party's elections held here.
Mustafa is a senior Terengganu exco while Hassan Shukri ia Selangor Pas Commissioner.
The results were announced by Pas permanent chairman Abu Kassim Abdullah at the end of the three-day Pas 47th general assembly today.
Mustafa obtained 625 votes followed by Senator Hassan (573) while Dr Hassan achieved 382 votes.
Out of three women who contested to become a member of the Pas Central Working Committee for the 2001/2003 session, only Dr Lo' Lo' Mohamad Ghazali was chosen to sit in the 18-member committee.
The president and deputy president's posts were won uncontested respectively by incumbents, Pas president Datuk Fadzil Noor and Abdul Hadi Awang who is Terengganu Menteri Besar.
As for the central working committee members, whose numbers have been increased to 18 compared with 12 previously, seven of the winners are new faces.
They are Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, Taib Azamuddin Md Taib, Husam Musa, Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar, Syed Azman Syed Ahmad, Salahuddin Ayub and Idris Ahmad.
The old faces who retained their posts are Dr Mohd Hatta Ramli who garnered the highest vote, followed by Hashim Jasin, Subky Abdul Latif, Wan Abdul Mutalib Embong, Ahmad Awang, Dr Abdul Razak Ismail, Abu Bakar Chik, Abdul Ghani Abdul Rahman, Syed Ibrahim Syed Abdul Rahman and Omar Muhammad.
According to the party's constitution, the President has the power to appoint six more members to the committee.
Meanwhile, Fadzil told reporters at a press conference later that he was satisfied with the overall elections and the outcome of this year's general assembly.
He said all three new vice presidents can be assumed as a network of a "winning team" and added that retaining both incumbents and bringing in a new member of calibre was an intelligent choice.
Fadzil said he intended to appoint some candidates who were defeated in the election as members of the Pas central working committee.
On the victory of Dr Lo'Lo' as the only female member of the committee, he said this showed that Pas did not discriminate against women although 95 per cent of the delegates are men.
Meanwhile, Dr Hassan Ali, 53 thanked delegates for voting him as one of the three vice presidents of the party.
"However I do not view this as victory but perhaps an opportunity for others who have served the party long to take a "brief break" to concentrate on other party activities," he said.
Senator Hassan Shukri, 63 described his victory as something out of the ordinary and pledged to help improve efforts to lure in more members.
Dr Lo' Lo' meanwhile said her victory was the highest recognition the party could accord to the women's wing of Pas.
"I was hoping more than one candidate will be elected from the women's wing, but for a start one is adequate, praise the Lord," she added.