I fully endorse what the Selangor Mentri Besar and PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali said yesterday, that hudud is not a common policy of Pakatan Rakyat, hence PAS should bring the issue to the Pakatan Rakyat presidential council for discussion.

Azmin referred to the September 28, 2011 meeting of Pakatan Rakyat Presidential Council at the PAS Headquarters attended by over 30 top leaders of DAP, PKR and PAS, which was also attended the then DAP National Chairman, Karpal Singh, and Kelantan exco members, and the consensus was that hudud was not part of PR joint common policy framework until all parties agreed to it.

As Azmin said: “If there is any new opinion or suggestion, it has to be brought back to the original consensus which was agreed among Pakatan, meaning that it has to go back to Pakatan’s presidential council.”

But PAS has never brought this matter to Pakatan’s presidential council.

In fact, the headline of The Malaysian Insider report on the Sept. 28, 2011 PR Presidential Council meeting was: “Pakatan: Hudud only if all parties agree.”

If the PR Presidential Council had not reached the consensus on Sept. 28, 2011 that hudud was not common PR policy and that PAS would not unilaterally push for the implementation of hudud without the consensus of all PR parties, three things would have happened:

1. PAS would have continued to push for the implementation of hudud regardless of the views of DAP and PKR.

2. Pakatan Rakyat would have disintegrated.

3. UMNO/Barisan Nasional would not have become a minority government with only 47% of the popular vote – in fact it would have regained the two-thirds parliamentary majority it lost in the 2008 General Elections.

It is shocking that there are PAS leaders who are claiming that there is nothing wrong in misleading Malaysian voters in the 13th General Elections in May last year to support Pakatan Rakyat and PAS candidates and yet renege after the general elections on the undertaking that PAS will comply with the PR common policy framework and would not unilaterally push for the implementation of hudud without the agreement of the three PR component parties.

Kelantan Deputy Mentri Besar Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah has said that winning Putrajaya will come second to the implementation of hudud, that it is only the means to an end!

I am not sanguine that the Kelantan State Assembly special sitting on Dec. 29 can guarantee that PAS will be returned to power in the next general election, as what could be sacrificed as a result of PAS reneging on its undertaking to PR and the Malaysian voters would be both Putrajaya and the Kelantan State Government. But we have to await the 14th General Elections to see the full impact of the consequences.

DAP leaders have agreed to disagree with PAS leaders on the issue of hudud because we believe we are on the same page to want to promote justice, freedom, democracy, good governance, incorruptibility and moderation in Malaysia.

We believe that we are honest politicians who will not use devious and dishonest means to mislead and cheat voters to vote for PR candidates under false pretences.

As I said yesterday, the December 29 Kelantan State Assembly special sitting to implement hudud will be a point of no return for both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

If certain UMNO leaders, like certain PAS leaders, can act unilaterally and arbitrarily to act against the founding principles of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat by devious and dishonest means, then it is doomsday not only for Pakatan Rakyat but also Barisan Nasional.

If the Kelantan State Assembly special meeting to push through the implementation of hudud, which even the PAS Central Committee is unaware of, is held, I see no purpose in my attending any future Pakatan Rakyat Presidential Council meetings, and I leave it to the party to decide on its next course of action.