KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — With 88 MPs in Parliament, Umno is in the best position to stop PAS’s attempt to implement hudud, Lim Guan Eng said.

The DAP secretary-general told non-Muslim groups to focus on pressuring Umno into making sure that hudud does not get implemented, instead of training their guns solely on PAS.

“Non-Muslim organisations should pressure Umno more than PAS because only Umno and Umno alone shall determine the success or failure in PAS’ attempt to implement hudud in Kelantan.

“As Umno controls the largest number of MPs (88) in Parliament, it is only logical that Umno must be convinced not to support PAS implementing hudud in Kelantan,” Lim said in a statement here.

PAS has announced plans to push for the implementation of hudud in Kelantan, a state it has governed for over two decades.

The Islamist party, despite facing tremendous resistance from its Pakatan Rakyat (PR) partners DAP and PKR, has said it will put forward two private members’ bills in Parliament for this purpose. One seeks approval for punishments including whipping, stoning and amputation while the other seeks to empower Shariah courts to mete out the sentences.

Once the bills make it through Parliament, the Kelantan state government will have the power to invoke the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II, which was passed in 1993, to introduce hudud.

In all previous attempts, PAS had been frustrated by Barisan Nasional (BN) tactics to prevent any vote by employing a “talking out” tactic where BN MPs have been allowed to speak for an extended period of time to prevent such private members’ bills from even being debated.

However, Umno leaders have now said they have no objections to the implementation of hudud and have constantly challenged PAS to try to introduce the law.

Yesterday, however, PAS announced that it will delay tabling the two bills.

Party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said the Islamist party was agreeable to Putrajaya’s proposal for a technical committee involving both the federal and state governments to examine and provide suggestions on how best to enforce hudud in Kelantan.

Lim said the decision to delay the bills will give non-Muslims more time to heap pressure on Umno to stop PAS’s hudud bid.

He reminded that it had been Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom who had instigated PAS to introduce hudud in Kelantan.

“Clearly Umo is the aggressor in trying to entrap PAS to implement hudud as an attempt to break up PR because of DAP’s strong opposition to implementing hudud in Kelantan because this is unconstitutional,” he said.