Islamist party PAS has urged its social democratic partner DAP not to break up the Pakatan Rakyat political coalition over the issue of Kelantan’s new hudud law.
PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali asserted yesterday that his party’s intention to implement its interpretation of strict hudud law in the east coast state was not new, and preceded the Pakatan partnership by decades. He insisted that that hudud implementation was part of PAS’s manifesto, even though it wasn’t part of PR’s common agenda.
“We will continue to stay with PR and we have acknowledged that this is not our common agenda with PR, this is PAS’s agenda.
“We have been saying this for a long time and it is clearly understood,” he said.
He urged the DAP not to make any rash decisions that would put the Pakatan coalition in peril.
“We are still hopeful and there is no issue of needing to persuade them [the DAP].
“They have understood, we only have to persuade when it is not understood,” he said outside the Kelantan state legislative assembly yesterday, as quoted by The Malaysian Insider‘s Hasbullah Awang Chik.
Yesterday, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang announced that the party’s central leadership would meet on Monday to review its position in Pakatan in light of the Kelantan state government’s push for amendments to a 1993 Syariah enactment, the bill for which was passed into law by the state legislature yesterday afternoon.
In the meantime, Mustafa said PAS would keep mum on the matter until its partner has finished deliberating.
“We will wait first.
“They have yet to make a decision, so we cannot say anything until a decision is made.
“It is their right to have a meeting,we cannot stop them.
“But we have said many times let us not burn bridges merely over this, there is no reason to.”
Photo: The Malaysian Insider
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