Anwar and I quarrelled about this five years ago

By MT Webmaster Last updated Feb 28, 2015

So, yes, I had my grouses. But my grouses were interpreted as being anti-opposition. Today, five years later, those grouses are surfacing and are threatening to split PAS and even split Pakatan Rakyat.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Rafizi: Pakatan must meet over hudud issue

(The Star, 23 Feb 2015) – Pakatan Rakyat leaders must meet to negotiate the hudud issue, which threatens to split the pact if the Syariah Criminal Code II Enactment 1993 is approved in the Kelantan state assembly in March.

Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli, who was asked about a possible Pakatan split should PAS push the hudud issue, said that the best course of action was for Opposition coalition’s leaders to discuss and iron things out about the issue.

“We have never come to a point where a member (party) is expelled, or when a member is asked to leave. We have no written rules for this,” said Rafizi.

It was reported that PAS would table the bill at the Kelantan state assembly sitting in March, before presenting it to PKR and DAP.

DAP national legal bureau chairman Gobind Singh Deo issued a warning on Sunday that PAS would no longer be seen as part of Pakatan if it went ahead with its plan to push for hudud in the Kelantan state assembly.

Head of PAS’ Dewan Ulama Hasan Mohamood said PAS still wanted to be part of Pakatan and all that DAP had to do was accept hudud as a part of PAS’ struggles, which could not be restrained or curtailed.

In his statement, Gobind, who is also the Puchong MP, said the proposed amendments to Kelantan’s Syariah Criminal Offences Act II, did not have Pakatan’s backing and were not part of the pact’s common policy framework.

He said the bill would go against the agreement reached in the last Pakatan leadership meeting, during which the Kelantan state government was told to present the amendments to DAP and PKR before the Bill was tabled.

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When Anwar and I met in London five years ago this was one of the issues that I brought up. I told him we cannot run a coalition on the basis of agree to disagree. Sooner or later we need to resolve all our differences and come to an agreement.

And if the coalition decides things based on consensus and not based on majority vote, what happens then if it is two out of three? How do you move forward when you have no consensus and it is two versus one? Are you going to revert to agree to disagree since you cannot agree based on consensus?

Yes, I raised that and a couple of other issues such as the Selangor Menteri Besar matter, the allegations of corruption and abuse of power in the Pakatan-led states, and so on.

DAP takes a very clear and firm stand regarding Chinese education and Chinese schools. Can we then also allow PAS to take its own stand regarding Islam and Islamic laws or the Sharia? And Hudud comes under the Sharia so what do we do about that matter?

Pakatan cannot say it does not support or opposes the Sharia because Malaysia already practices the Sharia since before Merdeka. The only bone of contention here is that PAS says the Sharia is not complete and they want it to include criminal indictments and punishments as well.

Anwar then said he is not happy with Khalid Ibrahim and that the MB is stubborn, has a huge ego, and will not listen to advice. Well, I replied, you cannot have a Menteri Besar who is at odds with the party and if this is the case why is he still MB and why, in the first place, did you appoint him as MB?

And then Anwar goes and appoints Khalid the MB for a second term and a few months later he does a U-turn and kicks him out. And this indecision and U-turn caused serious conflict within Pakatan Rakyat, especially between PAS and the other two. In fact, it even created an internal conflict within both PAS and PKR.

So what do I now do, send Anwar a message saying did I not tell you so?

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK