The Risk Professional: Malaysia's Islamist party flexes its muscles.

In the late 1990s, regional dissatisfaction with the incumbent Mahathir government resulted in the state of Terrenganu electing Parti Islam Se Malaysia (Islamic Party of Malaysia). Four years later, they were out having pushed through laws banning various forms of entertainment, any form of contact between unmarried men and women, including holding hands in public and being together, without chaperone, in the same room, the introduction of hudud law (which is not the same as shariah law - hudud provides for the chopping off of limbs and that a woman can prove rape only if she has four male witnesses supporting her case) and ordering haircuts for men deemed to have inappropriate styles. It changed road signs to the local form of Arabic script and coloured them PAS green - a version of the green widely used to denote Islam. In neighbouring Kuantan, PAS has, in national and by-elections, seen its seats dwindle.

But PAS's power was, largely, contained in those states and Kedah which borders southern Thailand.

However, in elections in 2007, PAS won seats all over the country following a widespread whispering campaign against incumbent prime minister Abdullah Badawi. Ironically, the whispering was not, many feel, initiated by PAS but by supporters of the man who wants to be Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim who, banned from running for a seat, masterminded the creation of a new political party, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat or PKR. It was fronted by his wife. Anwar is a masterful user of the media, both local and foreign. His ban came to an end and he was elected to a safe seat.

In recent elections, PKR won Selangor and formed a relationship with PAS . Then PAS started to impose its will, first by strengthening the religious affairs departments. PAS denies that it is trying to bring down the PKR government with a whispering campaign on the internet. But it is forcing PKR into a corner, claiming that it is not being sufficiently Muslim in its policies.

Last year, PAS decried - and tried to block - performances by foreign female artists. Their "Youth" wing, which is staffed with men who are middle aged and older, said that the performances were not suitable for Muslim youth and therefore should not be permitted to perform in Malaysia. On another occasion, they tried threatened to blockade a dance competition because male and female competitors would dance together. But those issues were the beginning of a campaign to drive Selangor from its tolerant attitudes to the Islamist approaches that PAS has implemented elsewhere.

Selangor is the state which surrounds the capital, Kuala Lumpur. It has, for some years, had a small nucleus of more hard-line politicians who wish to create an Islamic state. For example, in or about 2003, there was a proposal - defeated - to ban the sale of condoms, alleging that condoms were the cause of immoral behaviour.

More recently, PAS has pushed through measures to ban the sale of alcohol in predominantly Muslim areas in Selangor despite a prior law to say that issues of Muslims and alcohol were to be restricted to the Sharia, i.e. religious, authorities. Now, it is to be enforced by the police, a move that was the cause of much friction in some states in the lead-up to Independence more than 50 years ago. A recent raid on a 7/11 convenience store caused outrage and the confiscated beer and wine was returned to the shop.

Most recently, PAS is seeking the removal or transfer of the chairman of the State Local Government, Study and Research Committee, a representative of the Chinese DAP party and a member of the national ruling coalition with UMNO. PAS says that the decision to ban alcohol sales in certain sectors was taken at the Shah Alam City Council meeting and claimed "pressure from the local community" and it is not up to him to question the enforcement. He says that the local authorities are subject to supervision from the State level and that it is responsibility to question actions performed by local authorities.

Selangor is the state which contains several major Kuala Lumpur suburbs - and also the port town of Klang and - most importantly for foreign businesses - the development area of Subang which includes, Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the Sepang Formula One circuit and Cyberjaya.

In Cyberjaya, a special development zone designed specifically to attract inward investment, the local authority owned community centre is dry. There are several universities in Selangor including the flagship Multimedia University. PAS says that shops stay open late and sell alcohol to Muslims "including students."

Last week, a trial involving religious affairs department officers hit the headlines when a man in his thirties and a woman in her early twenties were brought before the court for "kalwat" or "close proximity. They were detained after officers entered an office building and found the two were the only two in the building. Officers told the court that they had not witnessed the two alone together but that the facts spoke for themselves.

Last month, a Singaporean Muslim woman was ordered to be flogged for drinking beer in a club in the Malaysian state of Pahang after a raid by religious authorities on a nightclub. In 2003, on the tourist island of Langkawi in Kedah, there was outrage with local religious affairs officers insisted on entering the hotel room of an American couple based on false reports that the man had taken a Malay woman to his room: his wife was wearing a sarong and had a suntan. Although isolated, these reports have an impact on the way Malaysia is viewed from outside.

And the question that they raise, in conjunction with the recent Selangor issues, is whether there is a trend.

For business people, for example, the strict line being encouraged by a small group would mean that allegations of kalwat could be levelled at a Malay man and a Chinese female secretary working late, or that a foreign manager and his female Malay HR director could not hold meetings without others present.

Yet, for the most part, Malaysia is a remarkably tolerant society in which the vast majority of people of all races adopt a live-and-let-live approach to life and the matters complained of should not be taken out of proportion.