Fear of Pakatan, not Covid-19 real reason for half-day sitting
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PANIC and fear within Perikatan Nasional is driving it to shorten this year’s first parliamentary session on May 18 to half a day and not allow any discussion on its policies, said analysts and civil society groups.
The fear that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will face a no-confidence motion is evident, they said.
Despite claiming the support of 114 of 222 lawmakers, PN’s four-seat lead over the opposition is slim and precarious, and the shortened sitting could be a chance to buy time to shore up those numbers.
They told The Malaysian Insight the latest official reason given for this decision – that the country is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic – is both irresponsible and incongruent.
This is because the PN government had allowed most businesses to reopen on May 4, including shopping malls and restaurants, they said.
Veteran politician Lim Kit Siang also poured cold water on Putrajaya’s official reason, saying that on April 17, when PN first announced the date and format of the sitting, the daily increase in Covid-19 cases was in triple digits.
“When Muhyiddin wrote to the speaker on May 12 to further slash the first sitting, new cases had dropped to between 16 and 70.
“It is not the pandemic but the prime minister’s panic at the motion of no confidence that is responsible for the unparliamentary truncation of proceedings on May 18,” said Lim, who is Iskandar Puteri MP.
Lim was referring to the no-confidence motion submitted by former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, which was accepted by the Dewan Rakyat.
The motion is to challenge Muhyiddin’s claim that he enjoys majority support of the 222 parliamentarians.
Testing Perikatan’s legitimacy
PN was formed in the last week of February through defections from Muhyiddin’s party Bersatu and 10 PKR MPs from Pakatan Harapan.
PH had always questioned whether Muhyiddin truly has the support of the majority of MPs and has been waiting to test this in the first sitting this year.
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, PN first cut down the sitting to the royal address and government business and bills, ostensibly to minimise contact among MPs.
But on Tuesday, Muhyiddin wrote to Speaker Mohamad Ariff Mohd Yusof to inform him that the sitting will be further limited to only the royal address.
In a letter sighted by The Malaysian Insight, the reason given for the change was because “it is in line with the situation where the country is still recovering from the Covid-19 outbreak”.
With the change in agenda, PN will no longer have to face the possibility of debating Dr Mahathir’s no-confidence motion against Muhyiddin.
Electoral and parliamentary reform activist Thomas Fann said it is irresponsible and incongruent to use the Covid-19 crisis to deny Parliament a meaningful sitting.
In fact, it is because of the crisis that the government should hold a proper sitting to get support for its programmes and budget to rescue the country, said Fann, who is Bersih 2.0 chairman.
“While the prime minister is allowing businesses to open, albeit with strict social-distancing guidelines, he didn’t think it fit for the Dewan Rakyat to meet to discuss the business of the country.
“With the spacious chamber of the Dewan Rakyat and the availability of tele-conferencing tools, there is no excuse for Parliament not to meet physically or virtually.”
Political scientist Prof Wong Chin Huat agreed with this, saying that while restaurants can now accept dine-ins albeit with physical-distancing rules under the conditional movement-control order, Parliament is unable to do so.
“What makes MPs sitting in Parliament any different from a restaurant?” he asked.
Buying time
Pollster Ibrahim Suffian said Muhyiddin’s decision infers a lack of confidence in PN’s ability to face unexpected situations or surprises during the sitting.
“This is especially after reports of the speaker allowing a motion of no confidence against the prime minister, which will take place at some point in the future,” said Ibrahim, who is Merdeka Centre executive director.
Despite claiming the support of 114 MPs, Muhyiddin appears apprehensive because that majority is slim and precarious while the opposition has substantive numbers.
“The number of non-PN MPs is large enough to potentially lead to surprises that day – for instance, if some government backbenchers fall ill or don’t show up for any reason.
“It indicates that while Muhyiddin may command majority, his lead is quite slim and precarious.”
Wong said Muhyiddin may be buying time with the shortened sitting to lure more opposition MPs to PN’s side so as to increase his majority to about 120 MPs.
“If he can increase his number from 114 to, say, 120, he can afford to counter the defection of up to seven MPs, and it would be difficult for the opposition to orchestrate a defection larger than that.” – May 15, 2020.