DAP today reiterated its calls to PAS to give up on its intention to enact hudud laws in Kelantan and Terengganu following the admission by a PAS leader that the party failed to secure Chinese votes in Thursday's Pendang and Anak Bukit by-elections in Kedah.

In a statement today, DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang said that acting PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang was right in saying that PAS' failure to secure Chinese votes caused its defeat in Pendang and reduced majority in Anak Bukit.

Hadi, who is also Terengganu Mentri Besar was quoted in The Star today as saying that the Islamic party failed to obtain Chinese support in the by-elections and was unable to attract Chinese voters to attend its ceramah (political talks) during the campaign.

However, the DAP leader disagreed with Hadi's assertion.

"The reason why PAS failed to attract the support of Chinese voter was not because they did not attend PAS ceramah , but solely because of the hasty and ill-considered enactment of the Terengganu Syariah Criminal Offences (Hudud and Qisas) Bill by the PAS-controlled Terengganu state assembly two days before the nomination day of the by-elections," said Lim.

PAS Pendang candidate Dr Mohamad Hayati Osman was defeated by BN's Othman Abdul with a slim majority of 283 votes for the Pendang parliamentary seat.

The party, however, retained the Anak Bukit state seat when its candidate Amiruddin Hamzah defeated BN's Zakaria Said with a reduced majority of 508 votes

The by-elections were called following the death of PAS president and Opposition Leader Fadzil Noor on June 23.

BA common manifesto

Elaborating further, Lim said both PAS and the Barisan Alternatif must return to the 1999 BA common manifesto 'Towards A Just Malaysia' which had implicitly excluded an Islamic state or any hudud and qisas enactment.

He warned it is not PAS alone which will lose the support from Chinese and liberal Malays, Keadilan will suffer an even greater casualty for allowing the common manifesto to be violated.

"The BA common manifesto was inspired by the injustices suffered by Anwar Ibrahim and other Malaysians and by allowing the BA common manifesto to be violated, it is tantamount to allowing the marginalisation of the Anwar Ibrahim case," he said.

The BA presidential council should meet urgently and to learn from the lessons and results of the by-elections, he added.

DAP, a former member of the opposition front, withdrew last September following a row with PAS over its Islamic state stand.