Indera Kayangan  by-election result will be completely different if voters were  asked whether to endorse  Mahathir’s Islamic State declaration and jettison the 45-year fundamental constitutional principle of secular Malaysia


Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

(Petaling Jaya,  Thursday)The Barisan Nasional landslide victory in Saturday’s Indera Kayangan by-election in Perlis has been used as popular endorsement of the declaration by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on September 29, 2001  that Malaysia is already an Islamic State.

After yesterday’s  Barisan Nasional Supreme Council meeting, summoned specially to re-admit Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS)  as the 14th member of the Barisan Nasional, Mahathir  said he also briefed council members on the recent declaration that Malaysia was an Islamic state.

He said the concept of the Islamic state was explained and all stated that they had no problem  with it.

This is surprising, as a week after Mahathir’s declaration at the Gerakan annual delegates’ conference in Kuala Lumpur on 29th September 2001, an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council was convened to endorse the declaration, with Mahathir  subsequently saying that “all the Barisan Nasional parties were comfortable with UMNO’s definition of Malaysia as an Islamic state”. Why was there the need for a repeat “explanation” of the declaration?

Was yesterday’s Barisan Nasional Supreme Council meeting a second official endorsement for Mahathir’s declaration that Malaysia is already an Islamic State - and if so, why was it necessary for the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council to give a second endorsement after giving official endorsement at an emergency meeting on 5th October 2001?

Or was the re-endorsement of Malaysia as an Islamic State at the  Barisan Nasional Supreme Council meeting yesterday purely to drive home the point that Mahathir’s declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic State has also received popular endorsement with the  Barisan Nasional landslide victory in the Indera Kayangan by-election over the weekend?

In giving  a second endorsement to Mahathir’s declaration that Malaysia is already an Islamic state, did the 12 other Barisan Nasional component parties, in particular MCA, Gerakan, MIC and SUPP,  get the specific mandate of their respective Central Committees and Party Congresses for such a ratificationn?

As the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council had reconsidered Mahathir’s declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic State some four months after the event, did the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and SUPP leaders raise the increasing concerns and objections of a widening section of the multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation about the declaration?

Or did the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and SUPP leaders lose a golden opportunity for a review of Mahathir’s declaration that Malaysia is an Islamic state for three important reasons:
 

In this connection, the MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP and other Barisan Nasional component party leaders should explain their stand on the  45-year fundamental constitutional principle and nation-building cornerstone of Malaysia as a democratic, secular and multi-religious Malaysia, as backed by the following constitutional history, declarations, interpretations and legal precedents:


The pertinent question that must be asked is whether the Indera Kayangan by-election can be used by the Barisan Nasional to declare that it is not only a popular rejection of the Islamic State concept represented by PAS, but also a popular endorsement of Mahathir’s declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic state.

I believe if the Indera Kayangan voters are specifically asked to vote whether to support or reject Mahathir’s declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic state, the verdict would have been completely different from the by-election result last Saturday.

It is most unfortunate that the MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP and other Barisan Nasional component party leaders did not focus on the question as to whether the Indera Kayangan voters would have voted so solidly for the BN if they had been  asked to endorse Mahathir’s declaration of Malaysia as an Islamic state and to jettison the 45-year fundamental constitutional principle of Malaysia as a democratic, secular and multi-religious Malaysia with Islam as the official religion.

The Barisan Nasional Supreme Council should meet for a third time on Mahathir’s declaration after  MCA, Gerakan, MIC, SUPP and other Barisan Nasional component party leaders had been given a full and proper mandate on the issue from their respective Central Committees and national congresses, as well as feedback from the full cross-section of the plural Malaysian society.

(24/1/2002)



*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman