Kit Siang: Did MCA collude in hudud power play?
It’s a ploy to give Umno and even PAS an advantage in the upcoming Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections against Pakatan Harapan and Parti Amanah, said Kit Siang
(FMT) – The MCA’s three Cabinet ministers have been challenged to answer whether they colluded with Umno in pushing the controversial Kelantan syariah court bill brought by PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.
The DAP’s parliamentary leader, Lim Kit Siang, making the challenge, also urged the Chinese community to pressure the MCA to explain why the party had not called for an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council.
He described as “cowardly” for ignoring his ultimatum for MCA president Liow Tiong Lai and Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong to call the BN meeting.
Lim said the Chinese community should ask the three MCA Ministers to explain whether the MCA top leadership had known and colluded in a political plot by Barisan Nasional chairman and Umno president Najib Razak and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang to give Umno and even PAS an advantage in the upcoming Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections against Pakatan Harapan and Parti Amanah.
The controversial bill, described by the DAP as the “hudud bill”, seeks to obtain parliamentary approval for a constitutional amendment allowing the Kelantan syariah court to impose Islamic criminal penalties. Government ministers have said that the bill does not seek to permit amputations (hudud) but to expand the syariah court’s powers.
MCA politicians, among others, have raised objections towards the bill.
Lim questioned how a BN minister from Sabah could know one day beforehand about the motion to bring the bill forward for debate, allowing him time to write an urgent letter to the Prime Minister to
stop such a “tactical” move in Parliament, “but the three MCA Ministers could know nothing about it beforehand?”
He said the BN Supreme Council could “end once and for all” the problems caused by the bill being “fast-tracked” in the Dewan Rakyat on a ministerial motion by deputy minister Azalina Othman.
However, Lim questioned why “all three MCA Ministers run for cover from the challenge” to summon a BN Supreme Council meeting and said the task had been left to low-level MCA officials, with “ferocious and even extreme statements” of which the MCA leadership could later claim ignorance.
He urged the Chinese chambers of commerce, the Chinese Assembly Halls and Federation of Chinese Guilds and Associations to put pressure on MCA Ministers.
He said they should also demand that Azalina Othman be sacked as a Minister for unilaterally and arbitrarily violating a BN consensus from March 2015 by bringing the parliamentary motion to fast-track the Bill.
