Who should be responsible for tabling of PAS’ hudud Bill?

Oriental Daily, June 3, 2016

On May 26, the last day of the current sitting of Dewan Rakyat, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Azalina made a surprise proposal to move up PAS President Hadi Awang’s private hudud bill seeking an amendment to Act 355.The move caused an uproar among both the ruling and opposition parties. Subsequently, MCA, MIC, Gerakan and SUPP said in a joint statement that the issue had not been discussed in the Cabinet or Barisan Nasional (BN) supreme council. The four parties also emphasized that PAS’ private bill goes against the Constitution and they hope more BN component parties would stand against it.

Who should bear the final responsibility as PAS President Hadi Awang has now succeeded in tabling his private bill in parliament?  DAP was the first to claim that since Gerakan and MCA were unable to block the tabling of the PAS private bill, they should bear the responsibility and quit BN.

On the other hand, Gerakan opined that DAP must bear the responsibility since its former partner PAS has tabled the Bill in parliament. Furthermore, MCA and MIC cabinet ministers said they would resign if the bill was passed. And subsequently, Gerakan also challenged Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to do likewise and resign from his post.

Who should bear the final responsibility since both sides are sticking to their view? I have been listening to the views of the grass-roots party members. Some felt that since PAS is an opposition party, its political partners in the opposition cannot shirk their responsibility. However, some also held the view that without the Prime Minister’s blessing, Azalina would not dare to made the move and thus, UMNO must have reached an internal agreement without informing its BN partners. And thus, UMNO indirectly supported the motion.

Even though there have been mixed views, the truth is DAP is the real culprit bearing the eternal guilt of betraying the Chinese community by helping PAS to grow to such strength that it can now act blatantly in tabling the bill.

During the early days of Pakatan Rakyat, DAP co-operated with PAS for its self- interest. As a result, millions of Chinese are now living in the nightmare of the hudud.

PAS has been persistently pushing its Islamic theocratic agenda with the ultimate aim of enforcing hudud and establishing an Islamic state. But DAP was willing to co-operate with PAS because of its stubborn aspiration for power. They cheated the Chinese in giving their votes to PAS, making it strong and powerful to push further its Islamic agenda.

When the party realized that it was unable to stop PAS for pursuing its hudud agenda, DAP cut ties with PAS and washed its hands. As we have come to this stage now, one wonders why DAP, especially its secretary general Lim Guan Eng, can be so thick-skin to blame MCA and Gerakan for failing to block PAS from tabling the bill in parliament. They lay the blame entire on MCA and Gerakan. In this regard, our president Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong took a stand to say he would resign if the Bill was passed in parliament.

We are pleased that MCA and other BN component parties are willing to follow Gerakan, and ready to resign as a protest. Earlier, Gerakan had been fighting a lonely battle in seeking a court order to challenge the constitutionality of the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code 11 (enactment 1933) and now other BN component parties are standing on our side.

Since my party is willing to give up its only cabinet post to prove our firm opposition to the hudud, can DAP’s Lim Guan Eng do the same? I feel that DAP is acting like a debtor who absconded after incurring huge debts from Ah Loong and now shamelessly asking Gerakan to settle the debt. When the Ah Loong comes knocking at the door and disturbing other’s daily life, DAP even said Gerakan did not pay its debts thus affected other’s daily life.

What is unthinkable is that DAP has 38 parliamentary seats and now wants Gerakan, which has only two seats, to block Hadi’s private bill. Isn’t it a big laughing stock in our parliamentary democracy? In a parliamentary democracy, the more seats a party has, the bigger say it has. If Gerakan has 38 seats in parliament, this thing will never happen.

Some grass-roots members believe that to show our unhappiness, Gerakan should field two candidates in the two by-elections or refuse to support BN election activities. However, after some deep thinking, Gerakan eventually decided to support the UMNO candidates in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections to prevent the strengthening of PAS or Amanah.

Even though UMNO is taking an ambiguous stand today, Gerakan and other BN parties have confidence, under BN spirit, to ask UMNO not to support PAS hudud bill. At this moment, Chinese voting rate in the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections is low but Gerakan would try its utmost to convince them to reject PAS and Amanah candidates to avoid adding two more PAS MPs in parliament.

Many a time I consider from a political angle what was in the mind of Prime Minister when UMNO allowed Hadi’s private bill to be tabled? Is it a tactic to thoroughly cut off the ties between PAS and DAP in order to weaken PAS’ strength? We don’t know because nothing was told to BN component parties. All we know is if the bill was tabled, there is the possibility of it being passed and eventually implemented. Our ultimate objective is to say no to hudud and we will fight to the end!

DAP cannot shirk its responsibility on this issue and we hope Chinese voters would teach DAP a lesson in the two by-elections. As to who should be responsible for the tabling of PAS’ hudud bill, the people are free to judge.