Sneaky Star’s misleading info box on RUU355

Update 5.50pm:

SPDP (Sarawak MP) is open minded about RUU355. See, http://www.bangkit.info/2016/11/datuk-seri-tiong-king-sing-sokong.html

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The J-Star last week carried a table on how Members of Parliament are likely to vote on Hadi Awang’s proposed amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act.

The private member’s bill submitted by Hadi Awang is popularly referred to by its Malay acronym as RUU355.

The infographic produced by the MCA paper – screenshot below – was crafted to mislead the public.

Click HERE to enlarge box

Sarawak (31 MPs)

In its ‘Sarawak’ row on top, The J-Star puts the state’s 31 MPs all in the ‘No’ box.

Assuming that every PBB rep toes the party line laid down by Adenan Satem, that would make up 14 ‘No’ votes. This number includes PBB’s Muslim MPs who are federal ministers.

DAP has five MPs in Sarawak who are certainly against the bill as well as any form of further Islamization.

The rest of the Sarawak MPs supposedly saying ‘No’ – in The J-Star opinion – are from the government bench of PRS (6) SPDP (4), SUPP (1) and opposition PKR (1).

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Sabah (25 MPs)

In its ‘Sabah’ row, The Star puts 12 MPs in the ‘Yes/Unknown’ box. These would be the dozen YBs representing Umno.

Actually Umno has a total of 13 MPs in Sabah. So The J-Star appears to have omitted Ronald Kiandee, who is the Umno Sabah MP for Beluran from its ‘Yes’ count. The paper’s reason for doing this could be because Ronald is a Christian.

The J-Star confidently places Sabah’s remaining 13 MPs in the ‘No’ column as rejecting the Hadi Awang bill.

According to The Star, the ‘No’ votes are:

• DAP — 2
• PBS-BN — 4
• Upko-BN — 3
• Umno-BN — 1
• PBRS — 1
• Warisan — 2
  Total — 13

DAP – the second most vociferous voice against RUU355 – has two MPs in Sabah. (The party most vehemently opposed is MCA.)

The remaining 11 Sabah naysayers making up the paper’s total of 13 against the bill are presumably four MPs from PBS (Joseph Pairin Kitigan, Maximus Ongkili, Linda Tsen & Mary Yap), three from Upko (Madius Tangau, Marcus Mojigoh & Ewon Ebin) one from PBRS (Joseph Kurup) and two from new party Warisan (Shafie Apdal & Ignatius Dorell Leiking).

While it is credible or plausible that Sabah’s BN Christian MPs might vote against RUU355, how sure is The Star that Shafie Apdal, who is a Muslim, is willing to do the same?

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Peninsula (166 MPs)

The Star counts 73 Umno MPs as possibly saying ‘Yes’ to Hadi’s bill.

(Note: Umno has 86 MPs with 13 of them in Sabah)

The Star counts 30 DAP Parliamentarians, including Muslims Zairil Khir Johari and Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz as saying ‘No’ to Hadi’s bill.

The J-Star has Muhyiddin Yassin of PPBM and Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj of PSM (whom the paper had classed as ‘Independent’) saying ‘Yes’/being non-commital for the present.

Nonetheless, the paper has PAN’s six Muslim MPs staunchly in the ‘No’ category. This is hard to credit unless the PAS breakaway party is really DAP’s waterboy as widely perceived.

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The Star is so, so sneaky 

To sum up, the Nest of Evangelistas listed altogether 93 MPs as saying ‘No’ to RUU355. This figure is definitely dodgy.

(a) The J-Star apparently assesses that the Christian Ronald Kiandee will vote according to his religious alignment and go against his party Umno. Yet at the same time, The J-Star does not believe that the Muslim Ariff Sabri, who is MP Raub, will similarly vote according to his religious alignment and go against his party DAP.

In any case, Ronald Kiandee is the Dewan Rakyat Deputy Speaker. If he chairs the sitting, then as Speaker he need not vote either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. So there is no justification for The J-Star to list him in the ‘No’ column.

(b) The J-Star assumes that Shafie Apdal will vote ‘No’.

(c) The J-Star also presumes the six PAN reps will vote ‘No’ which is unrealistic as going against the proposal to enhance Syariah implementation is political suicide for a Muslim party. And even if PAN ultimately fails to vote ‘Yes’ on some pretext or other, it is still more likely that it will choose to abstain rather than reject outright the RUU355.

From the above, we can see that the inflated  ‘No’ headcount by The J-Star is off mark.

In fact, the number of abstentions and absences from the House should the bill successfully come up for the vote is likely to be substantial as the YBs try their best to hedge their position.

Gunting dalam lipatan

The J-Star furthermore has Gerakan and MIC keeping MCA company as being solidly.

There will of course be a backlash from pro-government Malay voters against these intransigent BN non-Muslim components over their stance.

This is especially so in light of a potential compromise outcome — which is that Hadi’s bill may be withdrawn in favour of one drafted instead by BN cabinet minister Jamil Khir Baharom who is the PM’s man in charge of Islamic affairs.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing, The J-Star is has shown itself to be a media that misinforms its readership to the DAP’s advantage. Sneaky bastards!

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Updated:

https://twitter.com/Malaysia_Latest/status/804207696882860032