Sarawak DAP blames Sarawak PAS for the crisis in PR

KUCHING, July 27, 2014: Sarawak DAP has blamed Sarawak PAS for the crisis which the three members of Sarawak Pakatan Rakyat (PR) are now facing.

"The crisis (facing PR Sarawak today) is not due to fault of DAP, but due to PAS dancing to the tune of UMNO in the implementation of hudud law," Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen (picture) alleged in a statement today.

He claimed that Sarawak PKR chairman Baru Bian should be experienced enough in politics to see that Sarawak PAS is to blame.

"Is he not taking PAS to task because PKR Sarawak has no autonomy to do so and has to abide by the National PKR leadership’s directive?" he asked.

"As for DAP, we are firm and clear on our principle.  Our Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng was the first to announce that hudud law will not be implemented in Penang, even before Sarawak Chief Minister Adenan Satem made the announcement. 

"This is testimony to our resolve against the implementation of hudud law in Malaysia," he claimed.

Chong, who is also Bandar Kuching MP, was right about the announcement which Guan Eng made long before Adenan became Sarawak chief minister in February this year.

The then chief minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, now the Sarawak Governor, however, made it very clear that hudud could not be implemented in Sarawak because the state had no state religion.

Chong further said that the issue about the implementation of hudud is not only a Pakatan Rakyat issue but is a Malaysian issue. 

He added that the recent meeting between Kelantan PAS and BN UMNO to discuss the implementation of hudud law without the need to amend the Federal Constitution is grounded on the JAKIM’s paper released in May, 2014.

According to the paper, he said the Federal Constitution has implicitly provided for the implementation of hudud law and that non-muslims must also accept it.  As such, there is no need to amend the Federal Constitution to implement hudud law in Kelantan.

"Such interpretation of the Federal Constitution by the JAKIM is, without doubt, mistaken and wrong. 

"However, if the UMNO accepts such interpretation as the correct interpretation, then PAS also accepts it as such, the other component parties in BN keep quiet about it and PR also keeps quiet, then slowly but surely, such wrong interpretation will one day become the norms and accepted view in Malaysia.

"While I do not expect the BN’s component parties to speak up against UMNO for they have long been the “yes-men” of UMNO, but I do expect, at the least, the Sarawak PKR to be firm against such wrongful interpretation of the Federal Constitution.

"I hope Sarawak PKR do not see the proposed implementation of hudud law in Kelantan to be a mere Kelantan problem.