Dompok scares Christians with hudud
Support for Barisan Nasional is plunging and religion seems to be the only weapon left to fight the war against Pakatan Rakyat in Sabah and Sarawak.
Queville To, FMT
Embattled Upko chief, Bernard Dompok, has raised the “Islamic state” bogeyman to scare Christians in Sabah and Sarawak into voting for the ruling Barisan Nasional in the coming general election.
Worried that support for Upko (United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation) and the ruling coalition is plunging, Dompok warned the Christian community in both states that voting in BN would prevent the shift towards a more Islamised country as desired by opposition PAS, a partner in the Pakatan Rakyat pact.
The Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister stressed that there is no reason for Christians to believe that BN will go the same route as PAS in changing the religious makeup of the country.
“But I think the Christian community also recognises that the present government is always trying its best to see that the interests of everybody are looked after… [because] if you look at the alternative, what is there?” he said during the Penampang-level BN annual Chinese New Year walkabouts in Lido, here, over the weekend.
Dompok was commenting on a news report that quoted a local university researcher as saying that Sabah and Sarawak are no longer fixed deposits for BN because the Christian community in the two states have risen against the coalition.
He said the “Allah” issue raised by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng was “actually a non-issue.”
“The government has solved the issue by allowing the importation and reprinting of the Bibles into Sabah.
“So if you are allowed to import then certainly you are allowed to use it. So it is already a non-issue,” said Dompok who is Penampang MP.
He also took a swipe at Pakatan for its stand on the “Allah” issue.
“All the Pakatan partners got together and said it is okay [for non-Muslims] to use the word ‘Allah’, but three days later PAS changed its mind.
“And there was a time a DAP leader [reportedly] said [impose] the hudud over his dead body. But PAS does not want to respect his body because the next day it said it wants to implement it because it has already implemented it in Kelantan.”
“And this is the thing that PAS wants because religion is part of its constitution,” said Dompok.
Christians furious
Dompok said once PAS comes to power it is certain it will move to set up an Islamic state.
“And I think all of us will not want that…because Malaysia was formed on secularism and not as an Islamic state,” he said.
He reiterated that the Christian community must support the current government because it does not want an Islamic state.
