Yesterday’s PR Leadership Council meeting in Kuala Lumpur was the first attended by all 3 party leaders of PR in a year. Yesterday’s Leadership council meeting reaffirmed the 2009 Common Policy Framework signed by all 3 parties and that PR operates based on decision by consensus of all 3 parties, hence requires that the twin issues of the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code(hudud) and local government elections must first be discussed by PR Leadership Council. A special Leadership Council meeting will be held in the coming weeks to discuss both these contentious issues.
DAP has adopted a firm position of restoring local government elections that was banned by the then Alliance(BN) government in 1965. Local government elections is reflected implicitly in the PR Common Policy Framework adopted in December 2009 which used the phrase “strengthen local government democracy” and explicitly in the 2013 PR Penang General Election Manifesto that specifically mentioned implementing local government elections as well as the Selangor Pakatan Rakyat 2013 General Elections Manifesto with the specific undertaking to “carry out decentralization through a gradual implementation of Local Government Elections”. This was agreed by all 3 parties in the respective states. Further, no political party in PR had ever moved a resolution in their party Annual Assembly or Muktamar opposing local government elections.
However DAP is willing to let the issue of local government election be first discussed by the PR Leadership Council meeting. As for the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code or hudud laws, PAS admits that these laws are not in the PR Common Policy framework or in the PR General Election manifesto. However PAS claims that these laws were passed in the 90s even before PR was formed.
Whether a solution can be reached to resolve these two contentious issues, it is important that a meeting of the PR Leadership council comprising of the 3 party leaders, must be held first in accordance with the principle that PR operates based on consensus decision-making.
In the meantime, BN operates through a one-party state, that is now abandoning inclusiveness and the Malaysian spirit for everyone regardless of race and religion. Instead BN is now following UMNO’s racial exclusiveness and extremism as epitomised by a former Deputy Minister falsely blaming the Chinese community in Kedah for burning the Koran when it was done by Malay Muslim man with mental problems and yet remaining unpunished. Worse the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob is defended by the Prime Minister and regarded as a hero for his racist remark that the Chinese are oppressing the Malays and blaming the Chinese for causing the prices of goods not to be reduced.