Following the PAS-led Kelantan state government’s tabling and passing of a controversial hudud bill last week, the party’s erstwhile partner in Pakatan Rakyat DAP has decided to cut all ties to PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang … but curiously, not to PAS itself.
In a statement released after a meeting among its central leadership on the matter, DAP secretary-general and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that his party had lost trust and confidence in Hadi, and would no longer work with him on coalition issues.
As such, none of DAP’s 37 members of Parliament will not be voting in favour of Hadi’s tabling of a Private Member’s Bill to amend Malaysian Syariah law to allow for corporal hudud punishments.
Lim also lambasted the PAS president for sidestepping DAP and PKR, the other two partners in Pakatan Rakyat, and reaching a consensus instead with UMNO of Barisan Nasional.
“DAP deplores the dishonest and dishonourable acts of Abdul Hadi of co-operating with UMNO to violate this spirit of consensus as well as the Common Policy Framework that has jeopardised Pakatan Rakyat,” he said, as quoted by Astro Awani.
He also reminded Hadi that voters who supported PAS in the 13th General Elections in 2013 did not vote for the implementation of hudud law, but instead supported Pakatan Rakyat’s Common Policy Framework.
PAS has been championing the implementation of hudud in Kelantan and across Malaysia for decades, far longer than it has been a component party in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
Missing from Lim’s statements was a condemnation of PAS itself, pointing to an effort on DAP’s part to pressure PAS leaders and grassroots members to oust Hadi from the party’s presidency in favour of a more conciliatory candidate who will play ball with Pakatan partners.
Last Monday, the Kelantan state legislative assembly passed into law a set amendments allowing for harsh Islamic hudud punishments for religious infractions, including the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, and amputation of the hands for theft.
