Put Islam before DAP, Nik Aziz tells Dyana

(Malay Mail Online) – Dyana Sofya must get her priorities right and put Islam ahead of her party DAP, PAS spiritual advisor Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has said.

Nik Aziz said he met the DAP candidate in the recent Teluk Intan by-election yesterday and sought an explanation to reports which had quoted her as saying that she was against implementing hudud law.

“I listened to her explanation that she did not say she rejected hudud as reported by the press, and that she was following her party (DAP) stand on the matter,” he was quoted as saying by Utusan Malaysia today.

“So I said, which is a priority, religion or party. Party is new, only been around 40 to 50 years whereas religion has been around for thousands of years. So religion should be a priority.

“She became silent after that,” Nik Aziz added.

Dyana was DAP’s surprise choice for the Teluk Intan seat, which fell vacant when former MP Seah Leong Peng passed away from cancer.

She faced Gerakan president Datuk Mah Siew Keong, a senior politician and former two-term MP of Teluk Intan.

The high-profile poll came to a nail-biting finish with Mah, who was initially seen as the underdog in the race, finishing ahead of Dyana Sofya by a 238-vote majority.

By comparison, the late Seah, who was also a DAP man, had defeated Mah for the seat in Election 2013 with a 7,313-vote majority.

Analysts said Dyana Sofya’s lack of experience drove pragmatic voters to pick the seasoned Mah to represent them in Parliament.

Last month, PAS said it would delay tabling two private members’ bills needed to pave the way for the enforcement of hudud in Kelantan, to allow a proposed bi-partisan committee to study the implementation of the Islamic criminal justice system.

One of the parliamentary bills seeks approval for punishments including whipping, stoning and amputation, while the other seeks to empower Shariah courts to mete out the sentences.

The Islamist party’s decision to postpone tabling the bills came as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin — also the Umno deputy president — said his party would push for a national-level committee on hudud.

Muhyiddin had said both local and foreign experts on hudud would sit in the proposed committee. The specifics of the committee are not yet known.