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e Battle of Bangi 201

campaigns. Even UMNO organised an event, called Geng Ustaz Turun
Padang, featuring religious teachers and Islamic scholars a liated with the
party. However, UMNO’s campaign was very low-key otherwise. In contrast,
both PAS and Amanah candidates campaigned very actively, engaging voters
through events such as ceramah, house visits, and praying at local mosques
and suraus (places of worship for Muslims, smaller than mosques). As a well-
established party, PAS has strong control over many mosques, suraus, religious
schools, and kindergartens in Bangi. PAS also used tactics such as planting a
giant banner emblazoned, ‘ is is PAS Territory: Greener and Safer’ (written
in English) in one section of Bandar Baru Bangi, to reassert its in uence in
that middle-class Malay neighbourhood. e party also relied on the aura of
the late Harun Din, a popular religious teacher and healer, who ran a surau
and Islamic healing centre in Bandar Baru Bangi.
Even before the start of the o cial campaign period, PAS had organised
many ceramah, one of them featuring Azuar Md. Tasi, better known as Zuar.
Zuar, a member of XPDC, a Malaysian heavy metal band, transformed
himself from a non-practising to a practising Muslim in 2011. At the PAS
ceramah, Zuar played a few Islamic-themed songs and shared his journey
toward becoming a better Muslim. He asserted that PAS is the only political
party in Malaysia that is truly ghting for Islamic causes. Sharing the stage
with Zuar was Ustaz Ridzuan Mohd Nor, a religious teacher and PAS central
committee member ( eldnotes, 17 April 2018). During the election campaign,
Nakhaie Ahmad, a former PAS vice president who left the party for UMNO
in 1989, also backed PAS in a few ceramah in Bangi. Blaming UMNO for
being ‘corrupt’ and accusing PH of being ‘liberal’, he suggested that PAS was
the best option for Muslim voters. Some local ISMA leaders also attended PAS
talks in Bangi. In its online campaign, ISMA endorsed many PAS candidates
as ‘credible Muslim candidates’, yet its activists did not actively run an o ine
campaign to support PAS’s candidate in Bangi.
PAS leadership knew religious credentials alone would not be enough to
convince middle-class and youth members, as well as to win support from a
broader set of urban Malays. us, party strategists introduced the idea of
‘technocratic government’ (kerajaan teknokrat) and ran town hall meetings
featuring the party’s youth leaders from professional backgrounds. (On PAS’s
elevation of ‘professionals’, see also Kloos, this volume.) One of these meetings
was held in Bangi Convention Centre and screened live on Facebook. In front
of 800 young Muslims, PAS youth leaders insisted that PAS can not only
champion the Islamic cause, but can also run the federal government according
to Islamic principles, if given a mandate. Yet not all those in the audience were

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