MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai should stop blowing “hot air” if he is not prepared to issue an ultimatum to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that he and MCA would not return to the Barisan Nasional Cabinet and Government unless and until the Najib administration gives a solemn undertaking to uphold the secular Malaysian Constitution with no hudud laws for the country.

It is pointless of Liow going on a nation-wide road show to meet thousands of “MCA grassroots leaders and leaders from Chinese guilds and associations” breathing “fire and brimstone” and threatening to unleash thousands of MCA Youth members throughout the country, including surrounding Parliament when it reconvenes in June, over a PAS proposal to table a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament for the implementation of hudud in Kelantan when the MCA President dare not say “No”, loudly and clearly, to the Prime Minister who had said a few days ago that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud?

Was Liow and the MCA leadership consulted before Najib made the policy change and announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud, which not only violates the fundamental principles and features of the secular 1957 Merdeka Constitution but goes against the struggles, memory and heritage of the nation’s founding fathers in UMNO, MCA and MIC, whether Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin or Tun V. T. Sambanthan?

Or had Liow given his personal, if not party, agreement to Najib’s new policy announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud?

Malaysians are entitled to know – was the MCA President ever consulted and whether he had given his consent, whether personally and privately or as MCA President, to Najib’s announcement?

In the early decades of nationhood, no Prime Minister cum UMNO President would unilaterally and arbitrarily make any such announcement involving a major policy change in nation-building without first consulting and getting the consent of all the constituent parties in the ruling coalition, but after more than five decades of Merdeka, the MCA has never been so irrelevant and inconsequential in the eyes not only of UMNO, but even among the small component Barisan Nasional parties!

If the MCA President dare not even clarify such an elementary question whether he had been consulted beforehand and whether he had agreed, in his personal or party president capacity, to Najib’s policy announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud, then MCA should stop its “high opera” threatening to unleash thousands of people into the streets throughout the country, including surrounding Parliament when it reconvenes in June.

What credibility does Liow expect to command with such threats when as MCA President, he dare not even say “No” to Najib and to declare that MCA dissociates from the Prime Minister’s announcement that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government had never rejected hudud – and that in consequence, he and MCA would not return to the Barisan Nasional Cabinet and Government unless and until Barisan Nasional returns to the fundamental principles and features of the secular 1957 Merdeka Constitution with no hudud laws in the country?