PAS and DAP will never work with Umno, says PR

PAS and DAP will never work with Umno, but will work closely to the implementation of Islam’s hudud laws in the country?

Federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) today said its component parties will never work with Umno, the main party in the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition.

DAPSY chief Anthony Loke said that both the DAP and PAS will never co-operate with Umno.

“But MCA president (Datuk Seri Dr) Chua Soi Lek said DAP will work together with Umno to replace MCA in BN,” Loke told reporters after a PR secretariat meeting.

“DAP will also not work with Umno,” he said.

He said the actual co-operation was between the DAP, PAS and PKR in the opposition pact, saying that none of them wants anything to do with Umno.

He said Umno “thinks it is irreplaceable and everyone wants to work together with it.”

PAS Treasurer Dr Hatta Ramli had earlier in the press conference said, “We (PAS) don’t see how we can cooperate with Umno”, adding that Umno plays with “racial and anti-religious issues.”

Kedah MCA backs hudud, if PAS work with Umno

Kedah MCA has pledged its support for the enforcement of hudud law for Muslims, Malay daily Sinar Harian reported today.

                                                          Datuk Chong Itt Chew

The Malay paper published the report titled “MCA Kedah sokong hudud” (Kedah MCA supports hudud) on the front page today.

The sudden turn of events appears to suggest Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Chinese party is strategized in competing with DAP for getting the crucial Malay-Muslim vote.

MCA at the federal level, however, has persistently maintained opposed to hudud law. The support of Kedah MCA contradicts itself on hudud law implementation thus remains questionable.

Kedah MCA chairman Datuk Chong Itt Chew was reported as saying that the reason for its reversal was simply because hudud law would not affect non-Muslims.

“If the implementation of the law brings benefits to the people and the country, it will not be a problem including to non-Muslims.

“DAP should also not object,” he was quoted as saying by the paper, referring to the MCA’s long-time political foe that has repeatedly made clear it is opposed to hudud law being enforced as Malaysia is not an Islamic theocracy.

Chong was reported telling the DAP’s ally PAS to reconsider its role in the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition pact.

“PAS must make the decision to leave PR. As long as it is with PR, PAS will never succeed in implementing hudud law,” the MCA man was quoted as saying.

He was reported saying that Kedah MCA would support the Islamist party if it wished to work together with Umno, the ruling federal coalition’s Malay party and the BN’s mainstay.

Nash to Karpal: I’ll see you in court over anti-hudud remark

Senior PAS lawmaker Nasharudin Mat Isa defended calling Karpal Singh “anti-Islam”, saying he is ready to meet the DAP chairman in court to resolve their dispute in a case that is seen to test the ties between the two Pakatan Rakyat (PR) allies ahead of crucial elections due soon.

Karpal, a veteran lawyer, had said that he will sue the former PAS deputy president for defamation over the latter’s “highly irresponsible and mischievous” remarks, stressing that he has “never spoken against Islam” and respects Islam “as the official religion of the country”.

“I maintain my stand that Karpal Singh is anti-Islam and am ready to meet him in court,” Nasharudin today told The Malaysian Insider in a text message today.

“I was taught in PAS that Islamic teachings cover every aspects of life. In it is faith, laws and morals. 

“Rejecting part of Islam means rejecting Islam,” the Bachok MP said, referring to Karpal’s opposition to the implementation of hudud, the Islamic penal code.

Karpal has repeatedly said that the Islamic penal law cannot be enforced in the country as “hudud can only be applied in an Islamic state” while Malaysia remained a secular country.

The DAP veteran said he hoped Nasharudin would “understand the difference between Islam (as a religion) and Islamic state”.

“Our constitution provides for a secular state, and in Malaysia it is secular law which applies. You must have an Islamic state before we can have hudud law,” Karpal had said.

“I’m not saying PAS is wrong, but we cannot apply hudud because ours is a secular state. Our law doesn’t allow it,” he added.

Umno and its Utusan Malaysia newspaper have in the past week accused the DAP of being “kafir harbi”, or belligerent infidels, declaring it “haram” or forbidden for Muslims to support the secular PR party.

Karpal is seen as a lightning rod for Umno attacks because of his strong opposition to hudud.

Last Thursday, Nasharudin said that “Karpal Singh is not only against hudud but also against Islam”, adding that as a lawyer, Karpal should know that the implementation of the Islamic penal code required high standards of proof.

“For some offences, proof beyond any shadow of doubt is required. But he (Karpal) rejects all this just because it is an Islamic law,” Nasharudin said.

Karpal to sue PAS’s Nash accusing DAP against Islam

The political relationship between DAP and PAS seems became very tense after the DAP national chairman Karpal Singh issued the statement that he will sue Nasharudin Mat Isa for defamation.

Ironically, the opposition wants to create a feel-good factor among their coalition and hope that it will translate into votes in coming general election. The latest political development, however, appears to be otherwise and it will certainly make the road to Putrajaya more difficult.  

Karpal Singh said today he will sue Nasharudin Mat Isa for defamation after the renegade former PAS No. 2 appeared this week to side with Umno by pressing his party to leave Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and accusing the DAP leader of being against Islam.

It was reported that the DAP national chairman said  the former PAS deputy president’s remarks about him yesterday “are highly irresponsible and mischievous”, and that “I have never spoken against Islam”.

However, he stressed that hudud law cannot be implemented in the country as “hudud can only be applied in an Islamic state” while Malaysia remained a secular country.

“Time and time again I have said I respect Islam as the official religion of the country,” Karpal said.

“What DAP have been saying is we are not for an Islamic state. That is just a political concept,” he added.

Nasha says no wish to join Umno

Nasharudin Mat Isa said today he would not resign from PAS despite mounting pressure from within the party over his criticisms of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) ally DAP and for continuing to rub shoulders with Umno leaders.

The former PAS deputy president said his recent meeting with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Mecca recently was "non-partisan."

"I was invited by Saudi clerics. The clerics are my friends and they requested if I could arrange a meeting with the prime minister. After the prime minister agreed, I was invited on a special visa to attend the meeting," he said.

"We discussed the crisis in Syria and Rohingya," he said.

"After the meeting, people are suddenly saying I will join Umno. I have never had any intention to join Umno. I just consider them my Muslim brothers."

Quit Bachok if not with PAS, party’s Kelantan Youth tells Nash

Former deputy president PAS Nasharudin Mat Isa should quit his Bachok seat if he wishes to oppose PAS over its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partnership, the party’s Kelantan Youth wing has said ― signalling brewing discontent within the ranks over the senior politician’s close ties with the Umno leadership.

The Youth wing was responding to Nasharudin’s remarks calling for PAS to leave the PR opposition pact if its ally, DAP, continues to oppose hudud. The news was broadcast on TV3’s prime time news slot Buletin Utama yesterday.

“If he is no longer interested to be with PAS, it is only right for him to resign as Bachok member of parliament than to continue betraying the trust given by the people of Bachok in the GE12,”  Mohd Nuri Mat Yaacob, told the party paper, Harakah Daily.

“DPPNK sees his suggestion as merely a repetition of the arguments endorsed by Umno leaders all this time,” Mohd Nuri was quoted as saying, referring to his youth wing by its initials in Malay.

Nasharudin, is also seen as having close ties with political arch-rival Umno’s top ranks, and has been spotted rubbing shoulders with its president Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition’s functions.

His comment is seen to run counter to the party’s official stand, made by PAS president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and carried by Harakah this week.

Hadi had written an article to explain how the Islamist party could co-operate with the secular DAP despite their different political ideologies as they shared a common aim.

The DAP may be opposed to hudud but Umno has rejected the Islamic penal code, Hadi said, as he defended his PR ally that had come under relentless attacks from rival leaders and religious hawks the run-up to crucial national polls.

Pointing out the position of PR parties, he said that “just as DAP cannot force PAS members to consume alcohol or pork, PAS too cannot prevent DAP members from consuming alcohol or pork”.

“The PAS constitution compels us to sack any member who consumes alcohol or pork. The Umno constitution does not compel the sacking of its members for drinking with the MCA, MIC and Gerakan,” Hadi said.

In his article titled “Hudud: DAP Menentang, Umno Menolaknya (Hudud: DAP Opposes, Umno Rejects)”, Hadi said that there were no issues with PAS working with the secular party even though the DAP has repeatedly stated that it will not brook the creation of an Islamic state or support the enforcement of the religious criminal code that prescribes, among others, the amputation of hands for theft.

Pointless, Dr M says of Sabah RCI

The unchecked influx of illegal immigrants in Sabah has been a longstanding problem in the BN-ruled state, and frequently blamed for the rise in social, economic and security problems suffered by the locals.

Yesterday a Sabah-based Barisan Nasional (BN) party condemned Dr Mahathir for his “insensitive” defense of Sabah’s increasing migrant population, an emotive issue that will likely be central to the pact’s campaign for the state in the coming polls.

According to replies provided in Parliament last year, Sabah’s populace numbered 651,304 in 1970 and grew to 929,299 a decade later. But in the two decades following 1980, the state’s population rose significantly by a staggering 1.5 million people, reaching 2,468,246 by 2000.

Media reports said that as of 2010, this number has grown further to 3.12 million, with foreigners making up a sizeable 27 per cent or 889,799 of the population.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, however, said today that he disagreed with Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s decision to set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Sabah’s illegal immigrant problem, pointing out that such a panel would bring no solutions and instead complicate matters.

“The RCI will not deliver any result that will solve the problems. When there is an RCI it will bring about other matters,” the former prime minister told reporters today.

“I have been accused of apparently bringing them (illegal immigrants) in ... We don’t have to do that because they came on their own.

“Previously they have been coming and going. They are not alien to Sabah; they have been going back and forth between Sabah and the Philippines. Maybe they feel Sabah is safer and that is why they stay there,” said Dr Mahathir today.

He highlighted that, while he was PM, he had directed the authorities to repatriate the foreigners but it was a pointless exercise because they kept returning.