KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 ― PAS will not share details of its planned amendments to Kelantan’s hudud enactment with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) allies despite calls for the Islamist party to consult its partners on the matter.
Deputy Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah said the changes would be kept a “secret” and that partners PKR and DAP will only find out when these are introduced to the state assembly during the special sitting on December 29.
“We won't share the details yet. It is a secret. Even the state assemblymen will not know of it.
“They can only view it when the amendments are tabled,” Mohd Amar told Malay Mail Online.
The amendments are in preparation for PAS’s plan to table in Parliament a private member’s bill to amend the 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.
The federal opposition is again at a crossroads, with PAS once more on the defensive against vehement protests by PR partners DAP and PKR over the Islamist party’s renewed push for hudud law.
Politicians from the pact admitted that the current impasse over PAS’s insistence on enforcing the Islamic penal code in Kelantan could potentially be the last straw for the coalition, as those for and against hudud remain stubbornly rooted in their positions.
The hudud issue has also provided new impetus for a possible co-operation between PAS and rival Umno, with the latter dangling the support the Islamist party needs to push its private member’s bill through Parliament.
DAP has unequivocally stated that it will vote against such a bill, while Muslim lawmakers from PKR have yet to commit.
