PAS sec-gen declares Kelantan rally a success, claims 60,000 target hit

(Malay Mail Online) – PAS has achieved its aim of gathering over 60,000 people for today’s “Himpunan Fastaqim-H60k” gathering here, secretary-general Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan said.

He said according to estimates by the party and the police, the crowd during the prayer session earlier this evening at the Stadium Sultan Muhammad IV field numbered to over 40,000 people.

This, he added, does not include those at the terraces, which he said could accommodate at least 22,000 people.

“We thank God that the program today has been a success so far… We have over 10,000 people coming in from all over the country on bikes alone.

“The estimate I made alongside the police today during the prayer session was around 40,000 not counting those sitting on the terraces.

“The capacity of the terrace is around 22,000. So plus both of that, we have hit our 60,000 mark,” he told reporters when approached on the sidelines of the gathering.

The Kota Bharu MP also refused to comment if PKR and Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali would be attending the rally.

Takiyuddin claimed that Azmin was supposed to show up at the gathering but “might have been caught up with official business”.

PAS information chief Nasaruddin Hassan or better known as Tantawi meanwhile told the crowd that the turnout has well surpassed expectations of the Islamist party.

Today’s gathering in PAS-led Kelantan is seen as the party’s bid to regroup and reassert its identity as a Malay-Muslim party, remind its supporters that it is prepared to go into the next general election alone, and that it will no longer make any compromises on issues related to Islam such as hudud.

It was because of PAS’s push for hudud and other key ideological differences that sparked the fallout between the Islamist party and the DAP.

The spat between the two former opposition allies later led to the break-up of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition pact.