Lim Kit Siang

Call on Chinese Chambers of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Halls, Chinese Guilds and Association to ask MCA and Gerakan to requisition emergency meeting of BN Supreme Council meeting before June 18 to resolve controversy over Hadi’s hudud bill instead of falling into MCA/Gerakan trap of postponing resolution until end of the year

MCA and Gerakan have been calling on Chinese Chambers of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Halls, Chinese Guilds and Associations to oppose Hadi’s hudud bill in Parliament at the end of the year.

This is a very subtle and sophisticated trap which Chinese Chambers of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Halls, Chinese Guilds and Associations should be vigilant and not fall into, as it would allow MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders to have the best of both worlds – “to have the cake and eat it”!

I call on Chinese Chambers of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Halls, Chinese Guilds and Association in Malaysia to ask MCA and Gerakan Ministers and leaders to requisition an emergency meeting of BN Supreme Council meeting before the two by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar on June 18 to resolve the controversy over Hadi’s hudud bill instead of falling into MCA/Gerakan trap of postponing resolution until end of the year.

The threats by MCA and Gerakan Ministers that they will resign from Cabinet if Hadi’s hudud bill is passed in Parliament at the end of the year is now empty and meaningless as the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has revealed that it was the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Zahid Hamidi who gave her the order to move the Ministerial motion in Parliament on May 26 to fast-track Hadi’s hudud bill.

The persons the MCA and Gerakan Ministers should confront are Najib and Zahid and no more Azalina.

Are Liow and Mah afraid to confront Najib and Zahid in the Cabinet, because the MCA and Gerakan Ministers do not regard themselves as equals to Najib and Zahid, as was the case in the early days of Merdeka when Tun H.S. Lee, Tun Ong Yoke Lee and Tun Tan Siew Sin regarded themselves as equals of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Razak in the Cabinet?

In such a case, it is all the more imperative that Liow and Mah should requisition an emergency meeting of Barian Nasional Supreme Council to resolve the controversy over Azalina’s Ministerial motion to fast-track Hadi’s Hudud bill.

Apart from one or two political parties like the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), over 10 of the 14 Barisan Nasional parties would want to repudiate Azalina’s Ministerial motion to fast-track Hadi’s hudud bill and reaffirm the consensus of Barisan Nasional to reject Hadi’s hudud bill.

The Chinese Chambers of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Halls, Chinese Guilds and Association in Malaysia should not fall into MCA and Gerakan’s political trap and should demand that MCA and Gerakan should team up with the majority of the other Barisan Nasional parties to demand two things: (I) repudiate Azalina’s Ministerial motion to fast-track Hadi’s hudud motion; and (ii) extract a firm commitment from Najib that there would no repetition of the betrayal of the BN’s political and constitutional stand rejecting Hadi’s hudud bill, and that no Barisan Nasional Minister would ever again move a Ministerial motion in Parliament to fast-track Hadi’s hudud bill.