Kit Siang has reason to be angry with Hadi
The PAS chief cannot claim veto power and distort the Opposition’s stand on hudud.
Lin KayKay, Free Malaysia Today
DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang has been left wondering whether anger was permitted, under Islam and any of the religions of the world, towards PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang “because he has been untruthful, insincere and dishonest in repeatedly violating the PR Common Policy Framework and the PR consensus operational principle”.
“The Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council was in a crisis and has not met for more than three months as Hadi had unilaterally and arbitrarily disregarded the decisions of the Council or overruled PAS leaders who had attended in his absence, arrogating to himself veto power.”
Lim, who is also DAP Parliamentary Leader and Gelang Patah MP, was expressing shock and surprise that Hadi had invoked religion to say that “it was an obligation for Muslims to vent their anger at DAP for opposing the implementation of hudud in Kelantan”.
“This is a very dangerous, divisive and retrograde step which can only undermine the process of nation-building to create a united and harmonious multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural citizenry,” warned Lim.
Hadi, noted Lim, does not have the numbers in Parliament to pass the private members’ bill motion as he would be played out again by Umno.
He went on to say that hudud meant that the survival and integrity of the Malaysian Federation was at stake as the nation would be facing the greatest crisis since its formation in 1963, with Sarawak and Sabah feeling betrayed that the fundamental condition for their forming the Federation – that Malaysia will be a secular state – had been violated.
“Hadi’s private member’s bill motion will suffer the same fate in the current parliamentary meeting as in the previous Parliament, where it would not be given priority to be debated and voted upon,” predicted Lim.
Is Hadi going to invoke the wrath of the Almighty against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and the entire Umno/Barisan Nasional (BN) national leadership for again playing him out on the private member’s bill motion in the current Parliament?
The Pakatan Rakyat was facing a crisis of survival not because of hudud, said Lim, but whether PAS under Hadi was prepared to keep to the solemn promise to be committed to the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework and the PR consensus operational principle of all three component parties, DAP, PKR and PAS, and whether the PR consensus operational principle could be unilaterally destroyed by anyone of the three PR component parties, he said. “If there’s no basis for the continuation of PR it will cease to exist.”
The greatest challenge facing PR was not hudud, he reminded, but whether the PR Common Policy Framework and PR consensus operational principle can be salvaged and restored, or PR will just become history.
Hadi, reiterated Lim, was not being honest or truthful when he said that DAP had agreed to the implementation of hudud in Kelantan.
The Joint Statement of the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council of 28 Sept 2011 on hudud had made it very clear that while the three PR parties of DAP, PKR and PAS “agreed to disagree” as to what had happened in the past, referring specifically to the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment 1993 and the Terengganu Syariah Criminal Enactment 2003 passed before the formation of Pakatan Rakyat, said Lim, “the three parties agreed that for the future, all policies involving PR and their implementation must have the agreement of all three parties”.
Hadi, continued Lim, knew the import of the Joint Statement on hudud which explained his speech in Hulu Terengganu in May 2012 as well as in various parts of the country before the 13th General Elections where he said that hudud was not a PAS and PR priority as it could only be implemented if adequate conditions were met.
