The Hudud Controversy in Malaysia: Religious Probity or Political Expediency?

Introduction

2014 will be remembered as a year in which the whole Malaysian nation came together in the wake of the double tragedy involving the national carrier Malaysian Airlines, namely the disappearance of MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March, and the shooting down of MH17 over Ukrainian airspace on 17 July, killing all 298 passengers. The two mishaps, while bringing politics to a temporary halt, were not devoid of uncanny political circumstances. The MH370 mystery, in particular, took place on exactly the sixth anniversary of the 12th General Elections (GE12) on 8 March 2008, which changed the course of Malaysian politics when the Anwar Ibrahim-led People’s Pact (PR: Pakatan Rakyat) opposition alliance denied the ruling National Front (BN: Barisan Nasional) its coveted two-thirds parliamentary majority and added Penang, Selangor, Kedah and Perak to the list of states it controlled; Kelantan having already been under an Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS: Parti Islam SeMalaysia)-led government since 1990. The loss of flight MH370 also came immediately following the Court of Appeal’s verdict finding Anwar Ibrahim guilty of the charge of sodomizing his former aide Mohd. Saiful Bukhari Azlan. This momentous ruling overturned Anwar’s acquittal by the High Court in January 2012, and has had significant implications for Anwar’s and PR’s political plans for the rest of the year.

The fractious bickering among politicians over the role of Islam, which has been constitutionally designated as the “religion of the Federation” or as many put it, the country’s “official religion”, has continued to dominate the political scene since the end of Malaysia’s 13th General Elections (GE13) in May 2013. GE13 had witnessed the ruling National Front (BN) coalition losing further ground to PR. Although BN managed to recapture the state of Kedah and legitimize its hold on Perak which it snatched from PR through defections in February 2009, BN’s share of parliamentary seats declined from 140 to 133, besides losing the popular vote tally with only 47 per cent of votes as compared to PR’s 51 per cent.¹

Results of GE13 propelled Islam to the forefront of national politics in more ways than one. On the one hand, as a major signifier of Malay ethnicity as formalized in the Federal Constitution, Islam held symbolic value for United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the archetypal party of Malay nationalism. Under pressure from its rank and file to recover loss of support from the Malay masses in two successive general elections, UMNO leaders played along with ethnocentric sentiments of its divisional and branch level figures which sought to portray the Malay nation as being under threat of being overwhelmed by non-Malay forces, acting in cahoots with “renegade” Malays from Anwar’s People’s Justice Party (PKR: Parti Keadilan Rakyat) and PAS. Islam emerged as a rallying cry for such party-based conservative voices, which were supported by the Malay language mainstream media and Malay-Muslim non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They together made up a loosely bound conservative Islamist civil society, which were becoming infamous by the day for their inclination to issue incendiary remarks on ethno-religious matters.²

On the other hand, the outcome of GE13 was not a necessarily happy one for PAS either. While its participation in PR has enabled it to make inroads in states outside its traditional strongholds of northern and northeastern Peninsular Malaysia, PAS was understandably worried that its apparent moderation in ethno-religious issues had alienated rural Malay-Muslim voters, who have now turned to UMNO as their protector against a perceived non-Malay onslaught. Among PR constituent partners, PAS was the biggest loser, winning merely 21 out of 66 parliamentary seats contested. In comparison, the social democratic and Chinese-dominated DAP bagged 38 out of the 51 parliamentary constituencies it contested. PAS’s foray into urban areas was more than offset by the setback it was feeling in the hardcore Malay countryside. Alarmed by what was potentially a more than temporary reversal of support, PAS’s powerful ulama elite was increasingly [End Page 206...