"I'll Push Citizenship Bill If PN Wins" — Hamzah To M'sian Mums With Overseas-Born Kids
Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin — as the Home Affairs Minister — actively fought to deny the right of Malaysian mothers to confer citizenship on their overseas-born children on an equal basis with Malaysian men.
As the 15th General Election (GE15) campaigning is on its last legs, campaign promises seem to have become somewhat ironical in nature.
Take, for example, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin's promise to push for a citizenship bill for children born overseas to Malaysian mothers.
Hamzah, as the Home Affairs Minister, challenged a landmark ruling by the Kuala Lumpur High Court that Malaysian mothers' overseas-born children are entitled to be Malaysian citizens by law.
As the minister in charge, Hamzah has been responsible for leading appeals by two consecutive governments to effectively deny Malaysian women the same right that Malaysian men are automatically entitled to.
In fact, Hamzah, who is the Peritakan Nasional (PN) secretary-general, has consistently denied that allowing only Malaysian men to obtain automatic citizenship for their overseas-born children is discriminatory.
However, the caretaker Home Affairs Minister is now claiming that it's "not that I don't sympathise with the issue" and that he is "sympathetic" but couldn't do anything because his hands were "tied".
According to him, PN will continue pushing for the bill to amend the Federal Constitution on citizenship for children born overseas by Malaysian mothers if given the mandate to form the federal government.
Hamzah, who was speaking at a media conference in Muar, Johor, yesterday, 13 November, claimed that PN has followed his advice and included the citizenship issue in its agenda in its GE15 manifesto.
"I hope everyone [...] will follow what PN has announced earlier. This will show that this [citizenship] issue can be resolved earlier if everyone had been with me," Bernama quoted him as saying.
Contrary to Hamzah's claims, none of the promises in PN's manifesto commits to amending the Federal Constitution on equal citizenship.
In fact, PN is the only coalition that hasn't explicitly stated anything about the gender-discriminatory citizenship law and simply mentions "finalising a study on feasibility" of the relevant amendments.
Only Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) have committed to amending the Federal Constitution and the related laws to uphold citizenship rights for overseas-born children born to Malaysian women.
PH has also committed to amending other laws of the Federal Constitution to guarantee citizenship to any child born in Malaysia to either a Malaysian mother or father, regardless of race or religion.
For the record, PH was the first of the three major coalitions to release its manifesto, having done so on 2 November. PN announced its own on 6 November, while BN released its manifesto the following day.
SAYS has written about three of the country's biggest coalitions' manifestos here.
Photo shows Hamzah Zainudin speaking during the press conference at the Royal Malaysian Police Technical College, Bakri, Muar.
Image via Hari Anggara/Malay Mail
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