Explain why no call for emergency BN meet over Hadi's Bill, Kit Siang tells MCA

The Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Hall and Federation of Chinese Guilds and Associations should pressure MCA ministers to explain why they have not asked for an emergency BN supreme council meeting.

This is according to DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, who said the meeting would be to "end once and for all" the problem caused by the Private Member's Bill from PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

The MCA ministers should also be asked to explain why they have not asked for an emergency BN supreme council meeting to resolve the spat over Minister in Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman Said's motion to fast track the bill, he added.

"(Is it) because the MCA top leadership had known and colluded in a Najib-Hadi political plot to fast-track Hadi’s hudud bill – believing that this unprecedented move will give UMNO and even PAS an advantage in both the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections against Pakatan Harapan and Amanah?" he asked in a press statement today.

People want to know, he said, whether MCA leadership had given Najib tacit consent for Azalina to move her motion to fast-track Hadi's bill.

If not, why are they so reluctant to call for the emergency meeting to uphold BN's consensus on the issue and also to demand for the sacking of Azalina as minister for arbitrarily violating the BN consensus, he asked.

Lim then pointed out that his 48-hour ultimatum to MCA president Liow Tiong Lai and Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong to call for the emergency BN supreme council meeting will expire later today, but he added that neither Liow nor Mah will have the courage to do so.

"But can Liow or Mah justify their cowardly political stance – whether to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Chinese Assembly Hall and Federation of Chinese Guilds and Associations or even to their own membership?" he asked.

On May 26, the government had fast-tracked a motion to table PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s Private Member’s Bill in the Dewan Rakyat.

However, the debate and voting on the motion was postponed following Hadi’s request that MPs be given more time to prepare.

Since then, MCA president Liow Tiong Lai and his counterparts in Gerakan and MIC, Mah Siew Keong and Dr S Subramaniam threatened to quit their ministerial positions if the bill is passed.

The bill is officially named the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) (Amendment) Bill 2016.

It is referred to as the "Hudud Bill" as it would ultimately pave the way for the partial implementation of the Islamic penal code, specifically in PAS-ruled Kelantan which had already passed an enactment to that effect. - Mkini