The two-year episode of the Act 355 Amendment Bill (hudud bill) has exposed the frailty of secularism under our Federal Constitution. It has also exposed the danger of having an over-powerful Umno who is able to play around with the secularism enshrined in our constitution based solely on its political strategic consideration.

Before Najib Abdul Razak declared two nights ago that the government will not adopt PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s ‘hudud bill’, he had openly announced that the government will adopt Hadi’s bill as a government bill and tabled it in Parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had also repeated such a stand.

Then, why the U-turn on the part of Najib and Ahmad Zahid on this issue two nights ago?

Basically, it is based upon Umno’s political strategic considerations and not about defending the constitution. Otherwise, Najib would not have made the earlier contradictory announcement.

At present, PAS has only 14 MPs and Umno 86. The two of them do not have more than 50 percent of the MPs in Parliament. Whether the other BN MPs will support the bill, despite the fact that it is tabled by the government, remains questionable.

However, even if they do support it, the BN, in tabling the hudud bill, runs the risk of losing Sarawak and Sabah in the coming general election. This is a real risk that Najib cannot afford to take.

As a result, the hudud bill is thus postponed to another date. But surely this is only a temporary measure. The whole issue may again be revived in another 5,10 or 15 years when Umno becomes more powerful.

It is obvious from the present hudud bill issue that, there are only two political parties in Malaysia that support the implementation of the hudud bill in Malaysia, namely PAS and Umno. The hudud bill is thus a convenient tool for the two to garner support for their parties.

In the recent Act 355 episode, the biggest loser is PAS. By taking the bait of Umno in the form of Act 355, PAS betrayed Pakatan Rakyat and suffered the party split that gave rise to the formation of Amanah. PAS has hoped to work together with Umno, only to be played out by Umno later.

PAS has now become a lone party that belongs to neither the ruling coalition nor the opposition coalition. It will have to fight both BN one the one hand and either Amanah or Bersatu on the other hand in the coming general election. PAS has now become the political party which is fit for the politics of only one or two states of Malaysia.

It is thus foreseeable that PAS, under the leadership of Hadi, will lose more than half of the present number of MP seats and even running the risk of losing Kelantan in the coming GE.

Therefore, in the next two decades, PAS will not be able to have a large influence on Malaysian politics.

On the other hand, we are now left with the other political party that supports the implementation of hudud law in Malaysia, ie. Umno which has SUPP, MCA, Gerakan, MIC and PBB to help in disguising their ulterior intention.

‘Brainwashing projects’

Umno, through its indoctrination of alleged racism and religious bigotry in our education system, has apparently churned out more and more racists and religious bigots in our country. The import of West Malaysian Islamic religious teachers into Sarawak is just another example of such alleged brainwashing projects of Umno on the Sarawak populace.

In another 10 to 20 years’ time, there will be more Sarawakian Muslims thinking the same way as PAS and Umno. There will be perhaps be even more PBB leaders having the same mentality as the present Umno leaders.

There will come a time when hudud law will be tabled by Umno and the support therefore will be stronger (even in Sarawak) because:

1. The increase in the Muslim population at a faster rate than the other races;

2. Umno’s alleged brainwashing programmes will turn more Muslims into agreeing to the implementation of hudud law in Malaysia;

3. Through the alleged unfair electoral re-delineation exercise, Umno will seemingly always have a higher proportion and number of MPs in Parliament after every redelineation exercise.

Today, Sarawak may have objected to the implementation of hudud law in Sarawak. However, if we continue to allow Umno to import its ideology into Sarawak, in another 10 or 20 years, when those subject to the alleged Umno indoctrination programmes have grown of age, will the Sarawak government continue to object to the implementation of hudud law?

That is a pertinent question, especially given that there are now more than 1000 West Malaysia Islamic religious teachers teaching their version of Islamic values in Sarawak.

If we truly want to defend and preserve the secularism under our Federal Constitution, Umno must be made the opposition in the coming general election. It is only when Umno is made the opposition then that it can no longer implement its hudud agenda.

CHONG CHIENG JEN is Sarawak DAP chairperson, MP for Bandar Kuching and assemblyperson for Kota Sentosa.