KUALA LUMPUR, April 19 — PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang’s insistence on single-handedly pushing for Parliament to debate hudud will define the future of Pakatan Rakyat, as they struggle to deal with a widening rift within the coalition, Lim Kit Siang said.
The senior DAP leader said it was bad enough that Abdul Hadi unilaterally went ahead and tabled two private member’s bills in the last parliamentary meeting seeking a nod to implement shariah criminal law in Kelantan.
Making it worse, however, is the PAS leader’s refusal to even clue in senior members of his own party on the plans, Lim said.
While internal PAS issues are best left to the party to deal with, Lim stressed that Abdul Hadi’s continued recalcitrance breaks the commitment he himself made at the PR Leadership Council’s February 8 meeting where he had first presented his plans to the council for consideration.
If serious and solemn commitments made by PR leaders at the PR Leadership Council are openly ignored and violated, how can PR continue to operate as a viable political coalition or continue to command the respect and support of the people at large?
“This is the root cause of the PR crisis which will spell the survival or demise of Pakatan Rakyat,” Lim said in his speech, during a meeting with Malaysian students in Cairo, Egypt last night.
Earlier this week, Kelantan deputy Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said Abdul Hadi will submit a new notice to the Dewan Rakyat Speaker’s office of his two private member’s bills on hudud for the May parliamentary meeting.
The Kelantan state assembly approved the Shariah Criminal Code (II) (1993) 2015 Enactment on March 19 with 31 votes from PAS lawmakers supported by 12 from Umno.
PAS also submitted a private member’s Bill to Parliament to remove the legal obstacles that prevent the enforcement of hudud in Kelantan, which require bipartisan support from Umno and others to pass.
Hadi served notice to Parliament on the proposed Bills on March 18, but parliamentary affairs minister Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim previously confirmed that the hudud debate has been deferred to the next Dewan Rakyat session in May.
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