KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 — PAS’s ambition to implement hudud in Kelantan will set Malaysia on an irreversible path towards the enforcement of the Islamic penal code on all citizens, the DAP said today.

Countering the Islamist party’s insistence that hudud would only be applicable to Muslims once it is enforceable in the east coast state, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said the constitutional amendments necessary to do so would eventually see all Malaysians subject to Islamic penal law.

“Every non-Muslim knows that the Federal Constitution will have unalterably changed and Malaysia changed fundamentally from the present civil administration, when hudud laws are implemented under a ‘one country, two criminal systems’.

“Non-Muslims know that this is only the first step towards eventually leading to a full implementation of hudud laws on all, including non-Muslims in the future,” Lim said in a statement today.

Lim, who is also Penang chief minister, further said that PAS’s insistence on implementing hudud in Kelantan suggests that it was worried it cannot regain voter support based on strong public policies.

Continuing his party’s staunch objection to the Islamist party’s plan to implement the Islamic penal code in Kelantan, Lim also told PAS that hudud was not an issue that resonated with the electorate.

PAS would have won every general election in the past 50 years were hudud as important to voters as the Islamist party thought it to be, he added.

Lim reminded PAS that the bulk of its electoral gains in 2008 and 2013 came from multiracial support for the Pakatan Rakyat as a whole, saying to now insist on the controversial hudud law was a betrayal to the 80 per cent of non-Muslim voters who opted for the Islamist party over rival Umno.

He earlier acknowledged that it was PAS’s right in a democracy to seek the implementation of hudud, but pointed out the disingenuous nature of only revealing the plan after the party lost the battle for the Malay heartland against Umno last year.

“By pursuing this after the 2013 general elections now, there is strong suspicion that PAS has abandoned good governance because it has no confidence in winning voters’ support and standing on its record of competency, accountability and transparency,” he said.

Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob announced last week that the state legislative assembly will hold a special sitting on December 29 to table and pass amendments to the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II.

The move is in preparation for PAS’s plan to table in Parliament a private member’s bill to amend Federal Constitution and allow Kelantan to implement the Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II passed by the state assembly in 1993.

In Islamic jurisprudence, hudud covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape and sodomy. Punishments for the crimes are severe, including amputation, flogging and death by stoning.