An UMNO-owned mainstream media reported today that PAS President, Datuk Seri A Abdul Hadi Awang’s hudud-enabling private member’s bill would be tabled and debated in Parliament next week.
In the circumstances, the continued silence of the Presidents of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and Sabah and Sarawak component parties of Barisan Nasional on whether they have agreed on a Barisan Nasional consensus for Hadi’s private member’s bill to be given priority over official business in the budget meeting of Parliament to be debated and voted upon is no more tenable.

The time has come for all the Barisan Nasional component parties to break their silence on Hadi’s private member’s bill.

Early this month, the UMNO and Barisan Nasional secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said that BN has arrived at a consensus regarding Hadi’s private member’s bill.

Low-level MCA and Gerakan underlings cast doubts that such a Barisan Nasional “consensus” on Hadi’s private member’s bill had been reached at the BN Supreme Council meeting three Fridays ago, but the Presidents of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional parties maintained a studious and cowardly silence.

Even when Adnan subsequently made the nonsensical clarification that what he meant by the BN “consensus” was that whatever the decision the coalition made “must be on the basis of consensus of all parties”, the President of MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the other Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional component parties continued to keep their silence and dared not repeat the promises made by MCA and Gerakan in the recent Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections that the BN “consensus” will be restored!

It is still fresh in everyone’s mind that the Barisan Nasional “consensus” was violated and vitiated in the May meeting of Parliament when UMNO Ministers unilaterally and arbitrarily fast-tracked the PAS President’s private member’s bill in Parliament without consultation or reference to the other BN component parties – in reckless disregard of the 43-year BN stand and consensus that PAS’ hudud proposal was not appropriate for Malaysia’s plural society, and against the fundamental provisions of the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

Is there now a new Barisan Nasional consensus to agree to the fast-tracking of Hadi’s private member’s bill in next week’s Parliament, with MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional component parties even agreeing to it, or is this just the stand only of UMNO – one of the BN component parties?

If there is no new Barisan Nasional “consensus” among the all the BN component parties to fast-track Hadi’s private member’s bill in the October/November Parliament, then Hadi’s private member’s bill can only be given priority if UMNO ride rough-shod over the objections of the other BN component parties.

Did the other BN component parties, including MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional component parties make it clear to UMNO at the BN Supreme Council meeting three Fridays ago that the Barisan Nasional Federal government would collapse and disintegrate if UMNO unilaterally and arbitrarily goes ahead to fast-track Hadi’s private member’s bill in the budget meeting of Parliament, when there is no BN “consensus” for such a parliamentary action by UMNO Ministers?

Or has Barisan Nasional consensus degenerated from the original meaning of agreement by all 13 BN component parties into a perverted and corrupt version of what is unilaterally and arbitrarily decided by UMNO even in the face of objection by the other 12 BN component parties?
Let us hear from the leaders of all the 13 component BN parties!