PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang unilateral decision to table a private members’ bill to allow hudud implementation in the current Parliament sitting which ends on April 9, once again is a further act of treachery by PAS in breaching the PR consensus agreed to by him personally during the PR Leadership Council meeting on 8 February 2015. This was the final PR meeting chaired by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim before Anwar was imprisoned on 10 February, held at the PAS headquarters and attended by Hadi himself.
However, Hadi had served notice to Parliament on March 18, to implement hudud on Muslims in Kelantan by amending Act 355, which is the shariah court’s (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965. The hudud laws in Kelantan was only passed unanimously by the Kelantan State Assembly on 19 March 2015. By serving notice even before the bill was passed shows that Hadi has again broken his promise made personally by him during the 8 February meeting that any attempt to move a private member’s bill would be first discussed by the PR leadership council.
The issue facing the PR Leadership Council is no longer just PAS stubborn insistence to trust and co-operate with UMNO to implement hudud laws but also their President’s utter contempt for PR by repeatedly breaking his own promises to PR issued personally. Such serial acts of treachery by the PAS top leader is untenable and is a deliberate act of provocation to break up PR, or threaten DAP and PKR to either submit to PAS or face a break-up of PR.
Such an approach by Hadi of either it is my way or the highway, can not be part of and violates the consensus approach adopted by PR towards a healthy democratic and functional coalition. It is no longer DAP leaders feeling angry and betrayed by PAS Kelantan and several of its pro-UMNO national leaders for their dishonesty, deceit and treachery in turning its back on PR and instead willing to trust UMNO to implement the Shariah Criminal Code II Enactment or hudud laws.
Non-Muslim and moderate Muslim voters who supported PAS in the last general elections are also angered by such betrayal. For Hadi to claim that non-Muslim still have a place in their hearts for PAS is sad not only because it is untrue but that he is so delusional to believe that PAS support amongst non-Muslims have not disappeared.
DAP firmly opposes the implementation of hudud laws not because it is Islamic, but because hudud is unconstitutional and contrary to our Federal Constitution. This is reflected by the Merdeka Center’s survey amongst Malays in April 2014 where 58% of Malay respondents thought that the country is not ready for hudud implementation, and the recent survey of Malay respondents where 81% Malay/Muslim prefer support for flood rescue and repairs over hudud laws.
For those UMNO and MCA apologists in the BN-controlled media in both the Chinese and non-Chinese press, they should take heed of former MCA President Tan Sri Dr Chua Soi Lek’s comments in Malaysiakini today that MCA can not issue statements attacking DAP when UMNO had also supported the hudud laws. These UMNO media apologists in the Chinese media have forgiven UMNO for supporting hudud laws but continue to blame the DAP despite DAP opposing hudud laws.
These UMNO media apologists in the Chinese press have also chosen to ignore former MCA Vice-President Datuk Gan Ping Shieu’s statement that MCA should punish UMNO’s support for hudud by severing ties with UMNO as well as that it was UMNO Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom who had instigated PAS in Parliament on March 27 2014, to implement hudud laws on Muslims in Kelantan by promising the Federal government’s support.
PAS appears to have painted itself into a corner by being willing to lose all, not just the end of PR but also its electoral prospects in the next general elections, to place its trust in UMNO to implement hudud laws. At the coming DAP emergency Central Executive Committee meeting on Monday night, the latest action by Hadi will be considered together with the hudud laws passed by PAS Kelantan.