KUALA LUMPUR - For the first time in two decades, moderates outnumber clerics on a powerful committee in Malaysia's main Islamic opposition party, a move analysts say will help it win non-Muslim votes.

Delegates from the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) on Saturday elected 11 reformers and seven conservatives to the party's 18-seat decision-making central committee, the latest part of a rebranding that began in 2005 in a bid to woo voters and shed its hardline image.

But the vote for the post of deputy president was won by conservative incumbent Nasharudin Mat Isa at the party's annual congress, which ended Sunday.

"If you see the combination, it is clerics and professionals. It is a manifestation of what the members want - (for) PAS to consist of a collective leadership," Nasharudin said Saturday.

Ibrahim Suffian, a pollster from Merdeka Centre research, told AFP that the poll outcome showed the majority of delegates wanted more liberals to hold influential posts.

"They want a moderate face... to attract broad-based Malaysian support," he said. "I think they want to win non-Muslim votes."

Some 60 percent of Malaysians are Muslim Malays, but the population also includes large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

Ibrahim said the delegates had still voted in clerics because PAS needs to strengthen its Islamic credentials to win seats from the Malay-majority focused United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

Mazni Buyong, an independent political analyst, told AFP that the success of moderates in the elections could see more non-Muslims in multiracial Malaysia voting for the Islamic party.

"I think they will be able to make more inroads in the next election because the moderates are seen as more tolerant and do not push for the Islamic way of life, unlike the clerics," she said.

James Chin, a political science professor at Monash University said that PAS - with a membership of one million - now sees itself as a party capable of replacing UMNO in the next polls, which are expected to be held by 2012.

"PAS is becoming more mainstream. It used to be a parochial party. They see themselves as the alternative party to UMNO," he said.

Nasharudin ruled out any pact with UMNO, which leads the governing Barisan Nasional coalition, but would instead remain with its Pakatan Rakyat allies with the aim of snatching victory in the next elections.

"We will continue to enhance Pakatan Rakyat. There is no issue of PAS forming a partnership with UMNO," he said.

PAS has formed an unlikely alliance with two other opposition parties - Parti Keadilan Rakyat and the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party - to give themselves a chance of unseating the ruling coalition.

The alliance, led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, snatched a third of parliamentary seats in an unprecedented performance in 2008 polls

Nasharudin also said PAS would not impose Islamic laws on non-Muslims.

"The implementation of sharia laws is for Muslims. We will not force it on non-Muslims," he said.

Chinese and Indian voters have enthusiastically supported PAS candidates and at least 20,000 have joined PAS "supporters' clubs."

Much of the attraction stems from the party's reputation as clean and untainted by the corruption that blights the ruling coalition.

Abdul Hadi Awang, PAS president, told supporters deep disillusionment among voters meant the ruling coalition - which has governed Malaysia for half a century - would soon fall from power.