Has DAP abandoned its belief in federalism?

DAP is caught in a bind. It opposes hudud but it needs PAS and it cannot deny Kelantan's sovereign right to enact its own laws.

DAP has decided to ostracise Abdul Hadi Awang from Pakatan Rakyat but not PAS, the party he leads. This decision is not only presumptuous but also deceitful and prickly since it was not Hadi, but PAS, that joined this loose coalition of opposition parties before the 2008 general election. DAP cannot discharge Hadi alone. The party he leads must go together with him.

But DAP knows that its destiny is truly determined by PAS. It needs Malay support through PAS as it tries to obliterate its image as a Chinese chauvinist party.

DAP has been rattling wildly in recent months with calls for PAS to leave Pakatan Rakyat if it insists on enforcing hudud in Kelantan. Now that the PAS government in Kelantan has shown that it doesn’t give a hoot to what its Pakatan partners think, DAP is going on as if the world is going to end.

The decision to sever ties with Hadi implies that it wants PAS to oust him from his position as president of the party. The artifice employed is nothing short of crude and displays a complete absence of decorum.

Some people forget that Pakatan is a loose coalition with no binding agreement between the three coalition members. Any of the members can leave the coalition at any time. No party can sack another in an organisation that is not officially registered.

The decision to introduce hudud was decided unanimously in the Kelantan State Assembly. I am not for hudud, but I acknowledge the Kelantan Government’s right to legislate any law it wants to. One must remember that Malaysia, like the United States, is a federation and the Federal Government derives its sovereignty from the sovereignty of the member states.

Individual states in the US enact some laws that are different from laws used in other states. So if Kelantan decides to have hudud law, everyone, especially the Federal Government and political parties, should respect it. It was a decision made by a sovereign state exercising the sovereignty of its citizens.

The DAP and everyone else will have to resign themselves to the fact that we are not ruled by a unitary government.

DAP has all along been promoting the moral of federalism. There is therefore no reason for it to be rattled by the decision of the Kelantan State Assembly.