Malaysian Islamic Party Still Wants Stonings

Chelsea Wills/ Soc. 202/Religious Conflicts/Jan.17, 2008 http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=4147542

Malaysia's Islamist opposition party is trying to gain support from non- Muslims for its election campaign to support strict Sharia law, including amputations and stonings, for the Muslims. Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) is trying to gain support from minority groups in a predominantly Muslim area, and political experts are predicting that they will be fought on the basis of rising street crime.
"An Egyptian-educated scholar, Nik Aziz said non-Muslims had nothing to fear from strict sharia punishments, known as hudud, and a lot to gain from them, especially Malaysia's large and wealthy ethnic Chinese minority."" This is an exact quote from the article describing the opinion of a man supporting the political campaign. He also proceeded to say "It is more important for the Chinese to accept hudud laws because those who steal do not steal from the poor," If the campaign does succeed, the hudud laws will not apply to non-Muslims. Nik Aziz's home is located next to a mosque and a religious school in a traditional Malay village. Malay's are defined as Muslim under the constitution. He also mentioned that thieves steal from the rich which are often the Chinese, and if thieves were amputated you would be able to tell that they had stolen before therefore everyone would be afraid and wouldn't steal.
Malaysia, which was once a collection of Islamic kingdoms, and still holds Islam as its only official religion has recently experienced a lot of Chinese and Indian migration. Throughout the past two centuries they have experienced extreme racial and religious changes.
I don't really understand what makes the political party believe that non-Muslims will support their campaign for these laws when they don't apply to them anyways. I don't see how these laws will help their community considering that they do not apply to everyone. And Nik Aziz believes it will help in that you will be able to identify a thief by their amputations, but what if there is a non-Muslim thief? I can see how this would be a very controversial campaign.