Karpal to PAS: Don’t spoil march to Putrajaya
The DAP leader tells the Islamic party’s youth chief to stop giving BN the ammunition to attack Pakatan Rakyat over the hudud issue.
PETALING JAYA: DAP chairman Karpal Singh has again warned PAS not to spoil Pakatan Rakyat’s chances in the 13th general election by continuing to make contradictory statements regarding its stand on setting up an Islamic state and instituting hudud laws.
“PAS is only scuttling Pakatan Rakyat’s march to Putrajaya in the coming elections with contradictory statements on its stand on Islamic state,” he said today.
“Hudud is not included in the Pakatan Rakyat’s common policy framework, Buku Jingga. Likewise, it will not be included in the common manifesto of Pakatan Rakyat.”
He was responding to a statement by PAS youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi that those rejecting God’s laws would be considered “kufur”, an Arabic word often translated as “disbelievers”.
According to the New Straits Times, Nasrudin, in a posting on Twitter, said: “Karpal is consistent in rejecting hudud because he is a kufur. PAS must continue with its struggle to uphold Islam.
Karpal urged PAS to “stop supplying cannon fodder to the Barisan Nasional to be aimed at Pakatan”, saying that it was “counter productive and politically naive”.
He also warned Nasrudin to “mind his language” and also questioned if Nasrudin was the “spokesman of PAS”.
“I must warn this political upstart to mind his language. No one, no party, no organisation can claim to have a monopoly on God.
“I must state with all the force at my command that I believe in God. There is only one God and all religions reflect that.”
“This reflects beyond the pale of a doubt that PAS has given up its aim to set up an Islamic state,” he said. “PAS has, clearly, opted for a welfare state.”
He said that since hudud was a component of the Islamic state, “any attempt by PAS now to espouse introduction of hudud in the country badly reflects the bona fides of what was decided at PAS’s Muktamar last year.”
He also noted that on June 8 last year, the New Straits Times quoted PAS spiritual adviser Nik Aziz Nik Mat as saying that the party was right in shifting its focus from “Islamic state” to “welfare state”.
The hudud question has long been a thorny issue between Islamist PAS and secular DAP, and critics of Pakatan Rakyat have constantly picked on this, saying the opposition bloc had not been able to communicate a clear stance to put the issue to rest.
Misdirected arrow
Rather than warning MCA, the deputy education minister said that Karpal should be warning the rakyat instead as MCA was merely addressing concerns of the rakyat, especially the Chinese and
non-Muslim community, noting that this was something “DAP has failed to do”.
“It is only right that MCA demands answers.”
“Instead of trading barbs with us, Karpal should instead be shifting his attention to why his own DAP comrades, in particular Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng are still continuing to keep silent, leaving him alone in his battle with PAS and their Islamic agenda.”
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