Kelantan MB willing to lose post for Hudud

Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob said he is determined to implement controversial hudud laws in the state even if it means he loses his post as chief minister, local daily Sinar Harian reported today.

“I am willing to meet the prime minister (again) to discuss this issue, even though I lose as long as it can be carried out, I am not afraid, we really want to implement it,” he was quoted saying yesterday in his winding-up speech at the Kelantan state assembly.

Ahmad said he had met with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak last November to discuss the implementation of hudud in Kelantan, adding that the state is working with the federal government to overcome obstacles blocking the controversial laws from taking effect.

The paper quoted Kelantan lawmaker Datuk Dr Mohamed Fadzli Hassan as saying that the Federal Constitution could override state legislation if there are legal roadblocks to implementing hudud.

“Besides that, the laws in this country are not helping Kelantan, if there is a clash of federal laws and state laws, then the federal law will be used, we are not taught to break the law,” he was quoted as saying.

In 1993, the PAS-led state government passed the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II, but the strict Islamic penal code has not been enforced for the past decade.

Last November, PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said at the party’s annual congress that PAS would go ahead with implementing hudud laws in Kelantan, irrespective of whether its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ally, the DAP, agreed to it or not.

But DAP chairman Karpal Singh has always said that DAP was firm in its stand that hudud law should not be implemented and that Malaysia should not be turned into an Islamic state.