KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — PAS lawmaker Datuk Mahfuz Omar told Umno today to stop prevaricating and act against Gerakan for initiating a lawsuit against Kelantan’s hudud vote last week if the Barisan Nasional (BN) anchor party clearly supports the Islamic penal code as alleged.

The federal opposition MP noted that Umno has been silent in the past few days since its BN coalition partner filed the lawsuit against the hudud amendments that were passed in the Kelantan legislative assembly last week.

“Till today, Umno has been very quiet and did not initiate any action against Gerakan.

“Is this a sign that Umno has blessed what they did?” the PAS whip asked during a news conference at Parliament here.

Mahfuz alleged that Umno has only supported hudud Bill in Kelantan as it is afraid of losing votes and backlash from the Malay-Muslim majority community in the state, and is now afraid of making a public stand for fear of backlash from its BN members.

“If Umno continues to be mum on Gerakan’s move, this will prove that the support pledged by the 12 Umno state assemblyman in Kelantan was purely political in nature for fear of being sidelined completely by Kelantan people.

“Umno has to be honest about its stand and not put up a soap opera in this matter,” the Pokok Sena MP said.

Asked about former de facto law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s warning that PAS stands to lose in the coming national polls for its insistence of implementing hudud, Mahfuz said that was up to the voters and the democratic process to decide.

Gerakan, a predominantly non-Muslim party in BN, had filed its lawsuit at the Kota Baru High Court on March 18 in a bid to stop the Kelantan government from introducing the controversial Islamic penal code that provides for amputation of limbs for theft, among others.

Despite that, Kelantan’s PAS-led government proceeded with its plan the very next day and with the help of 43 assemblyman from both PAS and Umno, successfully passed the amendments to the Shariah Criminal Code II 1993.

The sole PKR representative abstained.

The success means PAS is just one step closer to achieving its hudud ambition after it first introduced the Bill in 1993.

The second move will be to seek approval to amend the Federal Constitution to allow hudud to be incorporated into Kelantan’s Shariah laws.