Lim Kit Siang has questioned if MCA president Liow Tiong Lai, who is also transport minister, was aware that the government would support the tabling of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's Private Member's Bill.

The DAP veteran leader raised this question after it was revealed that Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Wilfred Madius Tangau had written a letter to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in a last-ditch effort to stop the bill.

Last Thursday, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Azalina Othman Said raised eyebrows when she moved a motion to give Hadi's bill precedence over government matters but the PAS president later asked that it be postponed to the next sitting, citing time constraint.

"Liow must clarify the political mystery of his ignorance of Azalina’s ministerial motion as a day earlier – last Wednesday – a minister and head of a BN component party from Sabah had written an urgent letter to Najib expressing the opposition of the MPs of his party to any proposal to prioritise Hadi’s hudud motion," Lim said in a statement today.

"If  Najib had told him beforehand about Azalina’s ministerial motion, Liow should explain what he had done to stop Azalina from proceeding with the motion, which doubly violated the cabinet decision the previous week and the BN consensus in March last year," he added.

In the leaked letter by Wilfred, who is also Upko acting president, he told Najib that he came to know about the government's plan to support the tabling of the bill through a "third party".

He revealed that all BN component party leaders, including two Umno ministers, had in the cabinet meeting on May 20 opposed to such a move and proceeding with it would be against this decision as well as BN's consensus in March 2015.

After Azalina supported the tabling of the bill the following day, a vexed Liow said BN component parties were not consulted on the matter.

He also threatened to resign as a minister if the bill is passed, and his stand was echoed by MCA number two Wee Ka Siong, Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong and MIC president Dr S Subramaniam.

However, Lim noted that MCA and Gerakan had expressed that they would not quit BN if the bill is passed.

"It is quite unfathomable why two highly-educated persons like Liow and Mah, who have risen to become cabinet ministers, cannot see the gross contradiction in their positions," he said.

'Engineering a national crisis'

Lim also claimed the government's support for the tabling of Hadi's bill appeared to be an effort to divide the country between Muslims and non-Muslims ahead of the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections.

"This a dangerous and irresponsible political game as the real issue in the two by-elections are  not hudud but the 1MDB global financial scandal, the premiership of Najib who has lost the moral compass of being able to distinguish between right from wrong, GST and a whole host of issues which have seen the country going backwards instead of forward as a united, harmonious, competitive, progressive and democratic country," he said.

Lim urged Liow and Mah to call for a BN supreme council meeting to repudiate Azalina's ministerial motion.

"With such a BN supreme council emergency meeting to reiterate the BN consensus of March 2015, the problem created by Azalina in Parliament last Thursday would be resolved immediately and fully.

"There would be no need to create an artificial national crisis polarising Malaysians into Muslims and non-Muslims, purportedly over the 'hudud' issue till the end of the year, and there would be no need for the rigmarole and 'drama'  of empty threats to resign as ministers if the 'hudud' bill is passed at the end of the year," he said.

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.

For example, the punishment using the rotan under the enactment ranges from 40 to 100 strokes.

However, the Kelantan state's enactment cannot be implemented as long as restrictions existed that limited Syariah Court sentencing.

Hadi's bill seeks to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or Act 355 which limits the Syariah Courts’ punishment to a maximum fine of RM5,000, three years' jail or six strokes of the rotan.