I began this book by saying that it was never my ambition to be a Speaker of Parliament, nor should it be the aim of anyone in their right mind. After reading this book, maybe the reader too will concur on that.
As we have seen throughout the sections in this book, my experience chairing the Dewan Rakyat has truly been one of a ‘Parliament, Unexpected.’ However, my experience and views which I have shared here are only one small part of a larger story that continues.
This story cannot just be left to develop on its own; there are lessons to be learned, guidance to be sought for right-thinking citizens of this country. Unfortunately, today, these ideas and aspirations are a tough sell. The experience of the past three years has put a great many off politics, and why shouldn’t they be? Politics has proven to be more about cutting deals and making decisions that serve one’s self-interest more than the common good. It was never expected for our elected representatives to be loyal and so deeply principled, but the velocity in which allegiances change today has shocked even strident cynics. Nothing would surprise us anymore, it seems. Looking back, I hardly expected the changing atmosphere and dramatic political events that unfolded in the two short months of February and March 2020. The combination of these events and the worsening COVID-19 pandemic had unfortunate consequences to Parliament as an institution and Malaysian politics at large. No one could have predicted any of this, or could they?
The 14th General Election began well. It heralded a promise of hope and change. However, it was short-lived. Instead of ushering in much-needed continuing reforms to Parliament as a primary, important institution in the nation’s system of parliamentary democracy set within a constitutional monarchy, a period of instability and uncertainty followed. As at time of writing, this period has not ended. On the bright side, there are signs of improving parliamentary and political cultures in Malaysia. Ismail Sabri’s Government and the PH Opposition signed an MoU on Political Stability and Transformation which aims to push forward important constitutional amendments, and Minister in charge of Parliament and Law, Dato’ Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, expressed his commitment to seeing through parliamentary reforms for parliamentary independence and integrity. These are but beginnings that will demand the greatest levels of courage and statesmanship from our parliamentarians, particularly amongst those wielding the levers of government in Putrajaya and those charting the future face of their political parties.
The jury is still out on whether there will be desirable changes in the direction of better governance and constitutional practices. Will we see a Dewan Rakyat maturing into a forum of temperate and civil behaviour where educated and intelligent debates, questions, criticisms and oversight of government actions are the usual order of business? The immediate past and the evolving present provide at best mixed signals. Old habits and old norms of expected opportunities for those in power are hard obstacles to overcome.
They may not be especially interested, but the rakyat have a right to honesty, integrity and statesmanship from persons in power who are themselves chosen by the people. These people’s representatives must be made constantly accountable to them in the way those in power in a system of parliamentary democracy are expected to be.
To the Malaysians in the street, we have unfortunately not had a good record within the last three years since the last General Election in 2018. As I have narrated in the last few chapters, the tumultuous events in late February and early March 2020 led effectively to an undemocratic change of government and the sheer reversal of the Rakyat’s democratic choice. We can only appreciate and understand the gravity of those events if we return to first principles enshrined in the Federal and State Constitutions.
Political storms, MoU and aspirations
I ended my personal narrative in mid-July 2020. Since then, the Dewan Rakyat continued in its dysfunction as a shouting arena between rival teams and was even suspended for a good seven months through the Emergency Proclamation of January 2021. Its brief resumption as a special session on 26 July to 2 August 2021 to allow only for ministerial briefings by five ministers supposedly for the five days too was cut short, after being preceded by various short inter-day adjournments on the third day of the meeting and thereafter completely adjourned to a new date. This was ostensibly because of a few incidences of COVID-19 infections within the House despite nearly all of the Members having had their single or even double doses of vaccines.
Opposition Members who questioned the adjournment attempted to enter the Parliament on the following Monday 2 August 2021 but were prevented from doing so by the police. This preventive act led to a gathering of 107 Members in the grounds of Dataran Merdeka and an attempted march to the Parliament building which was aborted because they were blocked by the police again. As we’ve seen early in the book, every year since the Parliament of Malaysia existed, there would be the usual motion directing the Ketua Polis Negara to ensure free passage and access to Parliament for the Members. The events on 2 August 2021 did not appear to honour that commitment. This is a troubling development. The PN Government fell thereafter because the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin lost his majority in the Dewan Rakyat, not because the Opposition increased its numbers but oddly because of a temporary intra-coalition defection. At least 11 UMNO MPs expressed their non-support to the Prime Minister and that led to the loss of the majority support. Muhyiddin tried to work out a deal with the Opposition MPs, in particular those from PH, by offering to agree on a deal that seemed to look like a Confidence and Supply Agreement. That was resoundingly rebuffed. Muhyiddin had no alternative except to finally tender his and his Cabinet’s resignations to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
A familiar pattern then followed – Muhyiddin was reappointed as the caretaker Prime Minister in the meantime for about a week until Ismail Sabri, who had himself been a Senior Minister in Muhyiddin’s Cabinet, and later Deputy Prime Minister, who had therefore also resigned, was subsequently appointed by the Agong as the new Prime Minister to head a Cabinet which is made up of many of the same personalities. The PN Government was defeated but it arose again with a different Prime Minister. Instead of a “backdoor government”, the nation has a new innovation – a “reverse-takeover government” under the guise of Perikatan Nasional 2.0, or perhaps BN plus-plus. Muhyiddin’s offer of reforms lived on as the eventual MoU between the Government and PH.