Keep religion out of it, Pakatan candidate tells Muhyiddin

JOHOR BARU: Pakatan Harapan Pulai by-election candidate Suhaizan Kayat has reminded Perikatan Nasional chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin not to play around with Allah’s law.

The Johor Amanah vice-chairman said that in terms of politics, he has no issue if people, including the Bersatu president, did not support him.

“But when he said that it is haram (sinful) to support me then I feel that it is not right because it seems that we are playing with Allah’s law.

“We cannot just give out fatwa just to punish political opponents as we please because there will be bad effect from this,” he added.

Suhaizan, who is also the former Johor state speaker, said this when met after meeting with MCA machinery at the Pulai MCA division office here on Sunday (Sept 3).

He warned that people would soon think that they too could punish others as they please.

“In politics, we are different, which is not a problem including not wanting to vote for an opponent. But never use Allah’s law just to punish our opponents,” he added.

On Saturday (Sept 2) night, during a Perikatan ceramah at Taman Kempas here, Muhyiddin deemed it “haram” or sinful to vote for Suhaizan in the Pulai by-election.

“Do not give even one vote to Suhaizan, the ex-(Johor) speaker. I deem it as haram.

“Tomorrow someone will challenge me which fatwa this was based on,” the former prime minister quipped.

The by-election for the Pulai parliamentary seat and Simpang Jeram state seat are being held following the death of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Minister Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub who was respectively the MP and assemblyman for the seats.

Pakatan’s Suhaizan is in a three-cornered fight against Perikatan’s Zulkifli Jaafar and Independent candidate Samsudin Mohamad Fauzi.

Pulai is a mixed seat with Malays making up 44.18% of the total 166,653 registered voters, followed by the Chinese (40.46%), Indians (12.31%) and other ethnicities (3.06%).

In the 15th General Election held in November last year, Salahuddin had defended the seat and won with 64,900 votes, which gave him a 33,174 majority against Barisan Nasional-Umno’s Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed (31,726 votes) and Loh Kah Yong from Perikatan-Gerakan (20,677 votes).