KUALA SELANGOR: PAS leader Mohamed Hanipa Maidin was yesterday booed by party delegates during the party’s muktamar (annual congress), when he questioned why it was wrong for him to criticise their president, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

Hanipa said this in response to a delegate who had asked him why he did not defend Hadi’s private member’s bill on hudud and instead criticised the president in various forums.

Hanipa told the hall that he did not oppose the enforcement of hudud in Kelantan, but was against Abdul Hadi’s decision to submit the bill without first consulting PAS or its partners.

“We want to show the people outside that PAS practises democracy, we can criticise our president and the president can accept it. Why must we panic when criticism is made? Is it wrong to criticise? Or are we seen as not being wala (obedient) when we criticise?” said Mohamed Hanipa.

PAS deputy chairman Hussin Ismail immediately interrupted Mohamed Hanipa to request that he focus on the question, to which Mohamed Hanipa replied, “even the question wasn’t focused!”

This prompted the packed hall to break into a chorus of loud boos and shouts, and one delegate even sprang up from his chair, gesturing angrily at Mohamed Hanipa.

“Is this what we have been taught, to boo like this?” Mohamed Hanipa shouted above the din.

Cries of “Allahuakbar” (God is great) pierced through the air, before the delegates finally settled down. Apparently unperturbed by the commotion, Mohamed Hanipa said he was accustomed to receiving the same treatment from Umno MPs in the Dewan Rakyat.

“If I appear to be contradicting the president, prove it. Otherwise, I cannot answer the question,” he said. Hanipa added that he had always defended PAS’ hudud agenda, “even in hostile forums at the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall”, because it pre-dated Pakatan Rakyat’s formation.

“The only problem is that the bill was never discussed beforehand. I am a central working committee member, and I never saw it before it was sent to Parliament. Because of that, I couldn’t give my views when people asked me about it. It was difficult for me to defend hudud when that happened.”

But he added that should the bill be tabled in Parliament, he would defend it. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 5, 2015.