Hassan bin Abdul Karim (born 17 October 1951; Jawi: حسن بن عبد الكريم) is a Malaysian politician and lawyer who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Pasir Gudang since May 2018. He was chairman of the Federal-State Relations Select Committee from December 2018 to November 2022.
He is a member of the People's Justice Party (PKR), a component party of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, and served as the state chairman of its Johor branch from December 2018 until his resignation in July 2019. Hassan previously led Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) as its president.
Hassan, a lawyer by profession,[1] joined PRM in 1978 before rising to become its youth chief.[2] In April 2005, Hassan was elected president by a faction of dissident members who were opposed to party's merger with the National Justice Party into the People's Justice Party (PKR).[3]
Following the rejection of Hassan's proposal that the party enter into the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition coalition at a party congress, he announced his intention to resign on 15 November 2009. The same month, he re-joined PKR, then a Pakatan component party.[3]
In the 2018 general election, Hassan was nominated by PKR to contest the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat. He defeated incumbent Menteri Besar of Johor Mohamed Khaled Nordin of Barisan Nasional (BN) and three other candidates by a majority of 24,726 votes. On 4 December 2018, Hassan was appointed Chairman of the Federal-State Relations Select Committee, a parliamentary committee.[4]
Following Anwar's release from prison and return as president of PKR, Hassan was appointed the party's Johor state chairman in 2018.[5] However, following allegations of nepotism due to some of the appointees being allegedly linked to Anwar, Hassan initially refused the appointment.[6] On 28 December 2018, he reversed his decision and accepted the position[7] but later resigned 12 July 2019,[8] citing differences with the Johor palace.[9][10]
In the 2022 general election, Hassan successfully defended his seat and was re-elected by a majority of 31,558 votes.
On 16 November 2015, Hassan was charged at the Shah Alam Sessions Court with three counts of making seditious statements via his public Twitter account in which he was alleged to have criticised the Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah being abroad during Selangor Mentri Besar crisis in 2014.[11] He was discharged not amounting to an acquittal by the Sessions Court in May 2018, following the prosecution's decision to drop the charges.[12] On 10 May 2019, he was finally granted a full acquittal on the sedition charges by the Shah Alam High Court.[13]
