Hudud distracting Pakatan from rural voter outreach, DAP men say

KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 ― Pakatan Rakyat (PR) must focus on reaching out to rural voters in the next general election instead of wrangling over hudud, two DAP representatives said at a forum here last night.

Editor-in-chief for DAP newsletter, The Rocket, Wan Hamidi Hamid said that since PR failed to convince rural voters in Election 2013, this should be a priority ahead of the next general election.

“What Pakatan must focus on is winning over the rural voters. Sadly, this is not their current focus,” Wan Hamidi told the audience of about thirty people attending the forum after launch of the book, “Apakah ada lagi Tsunami Politik?” (Is there still a political tsunami?).

“Instead, they are fighting over issues concerning hudud”.

He added that PR needed to also pay attention to issues that also affected rural voters, rather than concentrating on the urban, middle-class vote.

“Do not cater to just middle-class concerns. Look at things such as the subsidies for the paddy and fertiliser,” Wan Hamidi said.

DAP’s Kluang MP, Liew Chin Tong, said in the same forum that the push for the Islamic penal code was an “exclusive” issue for a small group, questioning its relevance to current public concerns.

“Is hudud the most important issue in Malaysia?” Liew said.

“We have road issues, health concerns and water shortage, something the public care more than hudud.”

Barisan Nasional (BN) kept power in Election 2013 but lost the psychological popular vote to PR in what it asserted was a “Chinese Tsunami”, following a “political tsunami” in 2008 that cost the ruling coalition its customary supermajority in Parliament.

Polls analysis showed that BN was voted back into power largely on votes from the Malay heartland.

PAS is now looking for parliamentary approval to implement hudud. It plans to put forward two private members’ bills in parliament.

One seeks approval for unconventional punishments, some of which are for offences already covered in the Penal code. The other seeks to empower Shariah courts to mete out the unconventional punishments.

But in doing so, it again resurrected the on-and-off conflict between DAP and PAS that dates back to the 1990s and which had kept the two from co-operating for decades.

It also threatens to break up the PR pact formed in 2008, in the same way as disagreement over the Islamic law caused the Barisan Alternatif to disintegrate in 2001.