Karpal wants emergency top-level meet

The DAP leader wants the Pakatan top leadership to hold an emergency meeting as soon as possible on PAS' Islamic state agenda.

GEORGE TOWN: DAP has called on Pakatan Rakyat to hold an emergency top leadership meeting to once and for all trash out the controversial PAS’ Islamic state agenda.

Declaring that DAP would always oppose the establishment of an Islamic state, its national chairman Karpal Singh called on the Pakatan secretariat to immediately arrange for the meeting.

He said any delay to address the contentious matter would severely erode public confidence, especially among non-Muslims, on Pakatan.

He acknowledged that the controversial issue was of fundamental importance to Pakatan’s chances of capturing the federal government.

“Public perception and confidence on Pakatan would be badly affected. Pakatan must quickly address and resolve such an important fundamental issue of governance.

“An emergency meeting must be held immediately to publicly clarify Pakatan’s stand on the issue.

“The controversy must end once and for all,” he told reporters during his Bukit Gelugor parliamentary constituency visit here today.

The Islamic state issue cropped out this week when Kelantan Menteri Besar and PAS adviser Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat declared the PAS state government’s intention to implement hudud laws in the east-coast state.

He also said that PAS had not abandoned its goal to set up an Islamic state.

Malaysia is a secular state

Karpal, a lawyer by profession, said the Islamic state could never be implemented in any part of Malaysia because the Federal Constitution did not allow it.

He said state constitutions and laws could never contravene provisions under the Federal Constitution, which advocated a secular state.

He insisted that those who drafted the Federal Constitution in 1957 ensured that the country remained secular to safeguard the interests and rights of a multiracial society.

He recalled that a five-man Supreme Court bench led bythen Lord President Mohamed Salleh Abas, declared that the country was a secular state in a landmark decision on a case in 1988.

He said former prime ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman and Hussein Onn also declared the country as secular.

Even though another former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad claimed that Malaysia was an Islamic state, Karpal stressed that it was more of a “political than legal statement.”