Guan Eng Remains Strangely Silent Over Controversial PAS Law in Kedah

Slightly over 14 per cent of Kedah’s population is Chinese. They may want an answer to the same questions Tan Sri Koh Tsu Koon is asking of his DAP counterparts: “DAP always emphasise on democracy and the need for judicial review. Why is DAP quiet now? … Why is Lim Guan Eng silent as a lamb?”

Koh was referring to the bill passed by the Kedah State Assembly criminalising criticism of, and barring appeals in civil and sharia courts of, fatwas made by the state mufti or fatwa council. PAS in action.

Where is DAP? Is Guan Eng, who is usually so vociferous, suffering from laryngitis?

The move by PAS was reported by The Choice yesterday. Yet DAP has said nothing when its coalition partner is pushing a radical Islamic agenda? Where is DAP when Kedah’s Chinese population is threatened by PAS?

And where is Guan Eng? The man who has become the de facto face of his party? The man who claims to speak for the Chinese community? The man who cannot find a ceramah or Opposition reporter fast enough when he is ready to opine on the alleged evils of Umno? Where is that man now? Why no comment about Kedah?

Surely he cannot be compromising his party’s — and, we have been informed, his — cherished beliefs of a secular public sphere, and democracy, merely because GE13 is around the corner. Does this mean he would also stand aside if Pakatan ever took and let PAS push through hudud?

Surely Guan Eng will react to the PAS move in Kedah.

Our analysis is that the voters who put their trust in DAP to be a barricade against PAS’s worst proclivities must be reassured by Guan Eng that he is aware of what is going on and acting against it.

Or perhaps DAP is not worried about and the 14 per cent of the state that is Chinese?

Perhaps this is overblown. Selangor is just under 30 per cent Chinese, and the state government is headed by PKR. Obviously, in Selangor, with 12 DAP members of the state assembly, there wouldn’t be church raids or…

Oh, right. They did have church raids in Selangor.

A cynic might say that the question before DAP is not whether to compromise its core beliefs to get to Putrajaya; these have already been compromised. The question is how many of those core beliefs, and to what extent, DAP will compromise. And at what cost to the Chinese community DAP is supposed to serve?

If DAP does not react to the Kedah move by PAS, then it will tell us what would happen if Pakatan ever makes it to Putrajaya: PKR would countenance conservative laws at a federal level if demanded by PAS. And DAP would find itself out maneouvered by PAS.