On Dec 1, 2016 your news portal carried a news item titled ‘Putrajaya will take over Hadi’s bill, PM says’. The same news was carried in The Star of Friday Dec 2, 2016.

Prior to this announcement by the PM the (non-Muslim) component parties of the BN had vehemently, and quite rightly, opposed Hadi’s bill.

Following the announcement by the PM, The Star, under the heading of ‘What BN Leaders Say’, printed the opinions of several leaders of the BN component parties. Barring two, all the other BN leaders appear to be consistent in their stand and have affirmed that they stand by their earlier decisions not to support the bill.

Gerakan secretary-general Liang Teck Meng is quoted as saying “I am glad the prime minister gave an assurance to non-Muslims that they will not be affected. He also said the proposed amendments will not result in dualism in punishments.” Gerakan may be satisfied by a Prime Ministerial assurance, but for far too many of us this is not enough. Past experiences with politicians of the ruling BN (effectively UMNO) cause us to be cautious.

In Kelantan, we have seen how laws meant to apply only to Muslims have subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, affected non-Muslims.

Then we have MyPPP president M Kayveas who was quoted as saying, “When Najib urged Malaysians to accept the 1Malaysia concept, some quarters did not want to accept it. Therefore, he told them that if they cannot accept 1Malaysia concept, there is no other choice for Umno but to work with PAS or other parties for Islam to unite against Umno’s enemies.”

The quote is a little too ambiguous.

Does Kayveas mean to suggest that just as when some quarters refused to accept the 1Malaysia concept, Umno had to turn to PAS to help implement/accept the concept, now that “some quarters” will not accept Hadi’s bill, PAS (meaning Abdul Hadi Awang) has turned to Umno for support?

Further he is quoted as saying, “There is no other choice for Umno but to work with PAS or other parties for Islam to unite against Umno’s enemies”. Does he mean to say that Islam has to unite for Umno’s sake, ie unite to fight against Umno’s enemies? Is PAS teaming up with Umno to fight against Umno’s enemies? PAS has often been an ‘enemy’ of Umno in the past.

Some clarity will help. There is always an ‘out’: to say “I was misquoted”. Over to you, Kayveas. Here is your chance to clarify it.