Amidst all this, the Speaker and Deputy Speakers earned disrespect for what they did and did not do. As a former Speaker, I found it troubling to see mixed signals from the Speaker and one Deputy Speaker, and the use of technicalities as devices to avoid debates and consequences to events in and outside of parliament. When they do not appear to speak with one voice, and indeed when one even tendered her resignation, there is something clearly wrong in the House of Parliament.
The Agong has since called for all Members to cooperate and work together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and the distressful economic climate, which has led to quite a few quarters within the ruling coalition itself calling for institutional reforms to restart.
The Government-PH MoU states that important reforms and constitutional amendments must be tabled before the next General Election. These include laws to prevent party-hopping, enhancing the select committee system, re-establishing the separate parliamentary service or even a Parliamentary Commission, implementation of minimum voting age of 18, term limits for the Prime Minister’s post, and equal funding for Government and Opposition MPs. Besides that, a code of conduct to bind Members of Parliament to good behavior, establishing a non-partisan cross-party caucus to address parliamentary reform, passing a law on Recall Elections, ensuring the Speaker will be independent and requiring him or her to relinquish his or her party positions, calling for a Prime Minister appointed by the Agong outside of the normal appointment after a General Election to face a motion of confidence in the House, and so forth, are calls and comments that have been bandied about. For me, there are shades of déjà vu here.
Bringing back trust
The political elites, the rural voters in the hinterland, the young voters, the activists in the political parties, the professionals and concerned citizens in numerous civil society organisations, the young activists, the religio-centric, the communal-centric segments of Malaysian society and every other group in between, will most probably be watching and commenting on future developments on social media and socially-distanced places of congregation because COVID-19 will still be with us in the foreseeable near future. Hopefully, and for the sake of the future development of Malaysia, some segments may not by now be totally put off by Malaysian political parties that they no longer have any trust in free and democratic elections and Parliament as their representative institution.
As a former Speaker, I am obviously partial to parliamentary reform. Without reforming Parliament, there is little hope to regain the ever-elusive trust of the rakyat in their elected representatives. In the past, the Malaysian Parliament was regarded as ineffective and a mere ‘rubber stamp’. If timely reforms and a political reset are not taken, Parliament and parliamentarians might just be regarded as betrayers of the rakyat’s trust, a fate worse than being a rubber stamp. In this era in the 21st century, parliamentarians have to realise they no longer have a monopoly on people’s representation. Much of the work and the services to the constituents on the ground are also done by numerous civil society organisations, oftentimes with greater efficiency and effect.
I sincerely hope the ‘sounds’ and ‘chatter’ on reforms will be translated into real actions, honestly undertaken and fairly implemented.
Where do the Rakyat stand?
So where does that leave the everyday Malaysians trying to pick themselves back up after enduring almost two years of COVID-19? Where would they fit in the democratic scheme of things when trusted institutions and constitutional safeguards have been found to fall short over and over again? How can the concentration of power in the all-powerful Executive and political elites be reduced, and power spread more equitably? Most importantly, how can we ensure that our democracy is able to hold the people in power accountable for their decisions and actions that have led to so much suffering throughout the country in the past year?
If we were to step back and take a wider view, away from the daily movements and utterances of the persons in power and authority, but instead towards the conditions that facilitate their decisions and enable them to retain their positions of authority, we must acknowledge that there are deeper issues at play here. While it is certainly true that the PH Government was electorally elected and its fall due to the change in allegiance by its supporters was unbecoming and certainly untimely, the successive governments since then have been able to remain in place without much large-scale protest. What we have seen in the past three years is that the people have not stepped out to reject the fall of what is ostensibly a democratically elected government.
The government that took its place, and the one after that, did not win the elections, but were not any less democratically valid than PH in a formalistic, legal sense. They ticked the usual requirements to form a government: an outright simple majority of seats in the Dewan Rakyat, and a Prime Minister who is deemed to command the majority of the Dewan.
Is this a good and sufficient moral answer to government formation? Personally, I do not believe so, since a Government formed in this way must willingly obtain validation from the Dewan Rakyat through a vote of confidence thereafter. After all, no Government can exist without, and independently of, a clear majority support of the Dewan. If the first principles of the Federal Constitution can be so easily ignored, there will be a danger the Constitution will become just a decorative handover from a past colonial government long gone. The Constitution will erode and decay without strong cultural support, without local roots.
Where does the Speaker’s Office stand?
In the chapters in this book, I believe I have demonstrated that the Speaker is not all-powerful, but neither is he without any power or authority against The Executive in his role to facilitate constructive debate between Parliamentarians and nurture good public governance and government accountability. The Standing Orders can be a tool to enable rather than shut down Parliament’s role to scrutinise, emphasise, and advise the government. It is distressing to see, repeatedly, during this short span of time that Parliament instead is seen as an administration’s enemy to be muzzled even during times of grave crises. The use of rules to avoid and prevent Parliament from performing its functions only allows incompetence to remain unchecked – which comes at a great cost to the government itself.