This post is taken from Ed Soo’s Facebook post on 28 April 2013
The headline in today’s The Star is “Johor Shocker… DON’T VOTE FOR PAS”.
As anticipated, the BN is playing up the old PAS Hudud Law issue, and baiting some second rung PAS/DAP politicians to provide them with the appropriate sound bites. [I mean who the hell is Norman Fernandez, I have not even heard his name before this.]
Let us be clear about a few things:
- PAS is an Islamic party with the aim of creating a society and governance in which the values of Islamic life is implemented.
- We may not agree with their ideology, but I think we can agree that in a democracy, to paraphrase Voltaire, we will defend their right to subscribe to such ideology. Just as we will defend our right to subscribe to the ideology of a secular state. In a democracy – it is a competition of ideas and policies – this is how the game is played.
- Malaysia under our Constitution is a secular state, and to implement Hudud Laws, PAS will need a two thirds majority in the Parliament to amend the Constitution. Further, Hudud Law will only apply to Muslims.
- There are 55 PAS candidates running in the GE 13 – assuming all of them win, 55/222 = 24.7%. They are still 42% or 93 parliamentarians short of implementing Hudud Laws.
- PAS, DAP and PKR have agreed to disagree on this issue, their common manifesto makes no mention of the implementation of Hudud Laws. Instead, they have focused on the other 95% of ideas, which they can all agree upon. As Mat Sabu said to Guan Eng: “if (Karpal Singh) can agree (on the hudud laws), then he would be Mohamed Singh….”
- I do not agree with all of PR’s economic policies. Does that mean I don’t vote PR in this coming elections? Lets look at the bigger picture – we are at the historic tipping point of getting rid of this corrupt, cheating, unfair system. [If you are not clear on what I mean by changing the “system”, read my previous posting on this.]
I also want to add that the PR coalition is a more realistic representation of Malaysia and its complexities and contradictions.
We may be happy living in our Bangsar Bubble, and not want to confront these difficult complexities – but it is our reality, and we need to deal with it in time – with goodwill, mutual understanding and compromise as shown by our PR leaders.
So go and please tell all those uncles and aunties and friends who are worried about this Hudud Law issue, that there is nothing to worry about. Go vote PAS.
right on!