SHAH ALAM — Mr Kong Tuck Wah stands out in a crowd, not only because of his beefy size, but because he is one of just a handful of Chinese candidates standing under the banner of the opposition Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) - and the only one in Selangor - for the May 9 general election.

The tanned 62-year-old is the Islamist party's candidate for the state seat in Rawang, a suburb about 23km north-west of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

PAS’ choice of Mr Kong to contest Rawang is a practical one: The voting population there is majority - 47.1 per cent - Chinese, while Malays make up 26.9 per cent, Indians 25 per cent, and other races form the remaining 1 per cent.

The seat is the subject of a four-cornered fight, and of the other three candidates, two are also Chinese: Mr Chua Wei Kiat from Parti Keadilaan Rakyat (PKR) and the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition's Mr Chan Wun Hoong. The only Malay candidate is an independent, Mr Azman Mohd Noor.

Mr Kong, a father of three, hopes to break PKR’s 10-year stranglehold on the seat, and to do that, he is touting himself as a bridge between the Islamist party and non-Muslims, and wants to reassure voters that the image many have of PAS as a fundamentalist Islamic party is inaccurate.

To prepare himself for this task, he took a course on Islam last year to better understand the religion, so that he can explain its principles to non-Muslims.

Nonetheless, the sight of a Chinese person extolling PAS’ virtues is something that takes some getting used to.

A question asked most often of Mr Kong is whether he is Muslim himself.

"I say that I am a Buddhist and can eat bak kut teh if they want," he told TODAY in an interview at Selangor PAS headquarters in Shah Alam.

The bridge-building effort is not one way.

Mr Kong also advises PAS leaders on how to connect better with non-Muslims, and one oft-heard exhortation is that they ditch the “Taliban look” - Islamic robes and white skullcaps - when visiting the Chinese community to reduce apprehension.

Mr Kong, a self-made man who began as a junior worker in the construction industry before working his way up to owning his own business, has long felt that the opposition plays an important role of acting as a check against abuses by the ruling party.

Since PAS has been a mainstay in his constituency of Gombak, the fit for him has been natural.

His interest in actively helping PAS began days before the watershed 2008 general election, which saw the opposition denying the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition its parliamentary super-majority for the first time since the 1969 general election.

He was driving home one night when he saw PAS volunteers putting up flags and banners in his housing estate, and decided to help them.

After interacting at length with volunteers and party members, he concluded that PAS was misunderstood.

Its leaders and members, he says, have remained humble and unassuming despite their growing popularity, and this has allowed them to keep in touch with ordinary voters and understand their concerns, unlike other parties which have grown too big and distracted by success.

He adds that PAS is committed to clean governance and eradicating corruption, noting that none of its elected representatives have been investigated by Malaysia's anti-graft agency in recent years for corruption.

That stands in stark contrast with the record of other parties.

In March, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low told Parliament that 71 members of political parties belonging to the BN and Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalitions have been investigated for graft between 2013 and 2017.

PAS’ deployment of non-Muslim candidates has ticked up over time.

It first fielded a non-Muslim candidate in Johor in 2008 under its Supporters Club (DHPP) - a non-Muslim wing in the party that currently has about 58,000 members.

That increased to three (two Indians and one Chinese) in the 2013 polls.

The party’s Selangor branch also nominated 13 non-Muslims to serve as councillors, community leaders and village chiefs in the state after the polls.

This time, nine non-Muslims from DHPP are contesting under PAS' banner, including two in Selangor.

Mr Kong’s non-Muslim counterpart in the state is Mr M. Rajan, who will contest the Sentosa state seat.

Selangor PAS election director Roslan Shahir Mohd Shahir said the party selected Mr Kong as a candidate because he has shown himself to be sincere in helping the people.

He was the party's councillor in the Sepang district and has done "a good job" in the past few years, Mr Roslan said.

"He is a grassroots man and gets on well with the people. As the non-Muslim face of the party, he can engage non-Muslims to get them to understand our objectives and struggles," Mr Roslan told TODAY.

Mr Kong acknowledges that that might take some doing, because of PAS’ reputation: The party is battling the impression that it is pushing for Malaysia to be governed by the Islamic penal code, or hudud, which prescibes punishments such as the cutting off the hands of convicted thieves, or having adulterers stoned to death.

It has been pushing hard for hudud to be implemented in the one state it governs, Kelantan, and many non-Muslims view its actions there as a prelude to what will come if it wins wider power.

PAS’ dogged pursuit of hudud in Kelantan led to a confrontation with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and PKR, the other parties in the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition, in 2015.

The split led to the dissolution of PR and the formation of the new PH coalition. PH comprises DAP, PKR, PAS splinter Parti Amanah Malaysia (Amanah) and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM).

Non-Muslims view PAS as anathema as a result, and there are even Muslims who view the party with suspicion.

Mr Kong insists such fears are unfounded.

"Hudud is only applicable to Muslims, so why should we (non-Muslims) be afraid of it? Non-Muslims who are caught committing a crime will go to a civil court, while Muslims will be dealt with in a Syariah court," he said.

“There are also different degrees of penalties under hudud, depending on the severity of the crime. It doesn't mean that if you steal an eraser, you will get your hands chopped off."

PAS’ troubles do not end there.

The party is also dogged by suspicion that it is ready to drop its opposition roots and join forces with the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), the ruling coalition’s Malay-Muslim component party, which is a lightning rod for criticism from Malaysians who are vehemently against the political status quo.

Again, Mr Kong pooh-poohs this suggestion. He insists that PAS and Umno have only one thing in common - improving the lot of Malay-Muslims.

"If we were truly allies, we would not have contested in areas where Umno or BN in contesting," he said.

He admits that he faces an uphill task in wresting the seat from PKR, but relishes the challenge.

His status as a Chinese representing an Islamic party is an advantage, he insists.

“Rawang voters, especially the Chinese, should be proud of this and should vote for me,” he said.

“The party and I are proof that we are not as conservative or hardline as some think we are.”