He said PAS had reached the one million mark before, and even marked the occasion by presenting a special award to its party’s Tumpat division chief after the one-millionth member was recruited by them.

In March last year, PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang announced in a Facebook post that PAS had 1,000,300 members.

Today, however, Takiyuddin said that after updating membership records, the party had 800,000 members registered with them. “We have to be transparent. Some have left the party and some have passed on.”

He added that PAS would open more branches in a bid to increase membership and expressed confidence that this could be achieved if even those of the PAS Supporters Wing were allowed to register as members of the party as well.

Currently, only Muslims are eligible to be members of the Islamist party, but the PAS leadership is reviewing this rule with the view that non-Muslims be allowed to register as members as well.

Takiyuddin also announced that all PAS branches and divisions with party assets would be required to register their inventory as a means to prevent those who leave from taking party assets with them to their new party, as some reports had alleged.