Hudud can cause Pakatan Rakyat to lose big - Lim Kit Siang

Pakatan Rakyat will face a huge defeat in the next general election if PAS insist on implementing hudud in Kelantan.

DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang said based on previous general elections, hudud issue had never won the hearts of the voters.

“PAS and the Parti Keadilan Rakyat won eight Parliamentary seat and 28 out of the 32 Terengganu state assembly seats in the 10th general election after the arrest of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the reformasi movement,” he said in a press statement, Thursday.

“The enactment was passed in 2001, PAS and PKR only won one of the eight Parliament seat and four out of the 28 state seats in the 11th general election in 2004,” he added.

Lim said PAS and the PKR’s victory in winning four out of the eight Parliament sear and 15 out of the 32 state seat was because there was no campaign of implementing hudud in the state.

He also stressed that although PAS did not include hudud in the PAS Terengganu 5 Manifesto Promises and the 5 PRU13 Manifesto, that was not the reason for its defeat in the state.

“What’s interesting was that although PAS Terengganu had included hudud implementation in the Barisan Alternatif manifesto before 2008, it did not help PAS and the PKR win more seats in state level,” he said.

"Isn’t this a sign that Terengganu voters placed importance to other issues other than hudud implementation,” he said.

The Gelang Patah member of Parliament said that if PAS insisted in carrying out hudud before the 13th general election, the Malay support for PR would have been reduced.

He said if the support from the Malay base could be increased that way, UMNO and Barisan Nasional would have done that already.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today that the government had never rejected hudud as Allah’s law nut said that there were many issues that needed to be solved before it can be implemented in the country.

Meanwhile, DAP central committee member Gobind Singh Deo reiterated that DAP and PKR have the rights to fight PAS’s plans to implement hudud in Kelantan although the Islamic party is its ally in PR.

He said DAP and PKR had formed allies in the general election as PAS had accepted a common agenda which did not include hudud.

“Rakyat had given their support to PR because of the common agenda that we struggle for and it is our responsibility to remind PAS that the votes they get are because of the PR common agenda policy,” Lim said.

“DAP is not afraid of threats. We will continue doing what is right and speak against hudud because it is clearly against the Constitution and PR agenda,” he said.

He stressed that if PAS insist in tabling the private bill to implement hudud in Kelantan, then the party can expect open opposition from DAP.