MCA's campaign against hudud has been successful despite a recent poll finding that 42 percent of Chinese feel that it is fair, insisted party vice-president Chor Chee Heung.

mca new cabinet member 180308 chor chee heung Met at the Parliament lobby yesterday, he said this is because the predominantly non-Muslim Chinese community is now more aware about the impact of the Islamic criminal law "as expounded by PAS" if it is implemented.

"I would think they are more aware, unlike those days when they didn't know and they didn't even dare ask," said Chor, who is housing and local government minister.

He stressed that despite the party's strident campaign against the law, the MCA does not believe that hudud is bad.

"What the MCA has been saying is that hudud is a good law because it emanates from a religion. But maybe the time to implement it has not come yet."

Maybe later?

Chor added that this is because Malaysia is a multiracial country and the law will mean everyone, including Muslims, will have to "undergo changes in their lifestyle".

"Maybe (we can have hudud) at a later stage? We don't know," he said.

MCA has for years been on a campaign against hudud, using gory images of severed hands and legs to portray it as an extreme law.

In the latest survey by the Universiti Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections (UMCEDEL), 42 percent of Chinese respondents agreed that the law would be fair to all.