According to a Star report (March 28), Pahang PAS commissioner Idris Omar urged Malay voters in the Ketari by-election to vote DAP saying that both parties shared the same political objectives, and that the DAP was more receptive to Islamic concepts and not so "dead set against implementation of Islamic approach in the administration of the country" than Barisan Nasional's component parties".

This is news to me because just the other day the DAP deputy chairman, Karpal Singh warned PAS Terengganu state government not to act unconstitutionally by seeking to introduce hudud laws in Terengganu.

The government's position is similar: "It is very clear — the state cannot introduce any law that violates the federal constitution," Deputy Information Minister Khalid Yunus told AFP in a report Government warns PAS against Syariah law in Terengganu (March 27).

So what is Idris talking about in respect of DAP and PAS having common approach to implementation of Islamic administration and laws?

Doesn't DAP feel queasy in what its PAS "ally" say in the Ketari by-elections? Why are the opposition leaders telling different things to different racial groups (and behaving in the same way as what they criticise BN's politicians of) without any care of consistency, as if voters are stupid?

Of significance is that Syariah courts established by state authorities have jurisdiction over Muslims only and do not have jurisdiction in respect of criminal offences except insofar as conferred by federal law under the Muslim courts (Criminal Jurisdiction Act, 1965) which excludes hudud laws.

So in proposing hudud, is the Terengganu state government contemplating two streams of criminal law — hudud for Muslim and secular criminal laws for non-Muslims or hudud for all?

Even as applied to Muslims it would be unconstitutional because the state has no right to legislate a change in public offences that is different from those applicable throughout the land and other states. To the extent that hudud conflicts with the constitutional provisions, it will be illegal.

"The federal government has declared Malaysia as an Islamic state. If they oppose (hudud), then it means Malaysia is not an Islamic state as declared by Mahathir," said political secretary to Terengganu chief minister Hussin Ismail.

Does he think that the Federal Constitution belongs to the government of the day for it to change its basic character at will in order to merely satisfy PAS on its Islamic-ness? It only shows he has no understanding on what the constitution is.

The constitution is supposed to embody the nation values distilled from the amalgam of shared norms of different communities in the nation and from these, set out the respective rights and obligations of citizens of all races, cultures and religions pledging loyalty to it.

It is therefore the duty of the government of the day to defend the Federal Constitution that does not belong to it — or PAS — but to all Malaysians of all communities to whom it is a basic political social and legal contract of rights and obligations.

I am therefore shocked that in spite of PAS' challenge against the Federal Constitution — a challenge that goes against the grain of DAP's political philosophy of plural secular democracy — the DAP still thinks it is alright to get PAS' help in Ketari by-election simply because of the opportunistic reason bereft of principle that it is against the common enemy, the Barisan Nasional. But to DAP, who is really the real enemy?