Why Muhyiddin must be put to the test

At a protest gathering against the formation of a backdoor government last month, a member of the crowd attempted to disrupt one of the speakers.

“You should stop speaking. The Agong already chose,” he said, referring to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s decision to appoint Muhyiddin Yassin as Malaysia’s 8th prime minister.

The man was ushered away from the speaker and asked to convene his own gathering, instead of disrupting a speaker at the event he was attending at Dataran Merdeka.

What he had to say still deserves our attention, not least because politicians have also started declaring that to oppose Muhyiddin’s appointment is to challenge our monarch.

Our Agong

Notable among these political leaders is PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang. Last week, Hadi accused Pakatan Harapan, in calling for a test of Muhyiddin’s support in Parliament, of an attempt to “start a vote of no-confidence” against the ruler.

Hadi’s remarks are notable because his party is now in federal power thanks to the machinations that triggered the PH government’s collapse in late February. Here is an influential Malay-Muslim rights-based party declaring that any test of Muhyddin’s legitimacy in Parliament would be tantamount to undermining the Agong.

This must surely be a mischievous attempt to paint our ruler as a feudal lord, instead of the constitutional monarch that he is. PAS may want that to be the case but wanting that doesn’t give PAS, or anyone else the right to misrepresent our monarch.

Our Agong – and I say, our because he is constitutionally bound to uphold the interests of all Malaysians – made an assessment of the person who he thought was reasonably likely to command the majority of support in Parliament.

The Agong completed his constitutional duty to the best of his ability. And should there be any doubt about Muhyiddin’s legitimacy, and the facts upon which the decision was made, it is constitutional and hence appropriate for that legitimacy to be tested in Parliament.

Indeed, a vote of confidence in Parliament for a newly-appointed prime minister has been performed before in our history.

In January 1976, Hussein Onn was appointed the third Malaysian prime minister, following the passing of Abduk Razak Hussein. Hussein Onn did not use this royal appointment as a carte blanche. Lawyer GK Ganesan writes that 11 days after Hussein Onn’s appointment, the premier convened an emergency meeting of Parliament to ask for a vote of confidence. Only after he obtained it, did Hussein Onn begin his constitutional duties as prime minister. “He could not be said to have defied the King,” Ganesan notes.

Likewise, the current situation. Our Agong’s constitutional duty is to uphold our parliamentary democracy. Hence, I cannot see how he would find objectionable any attempt to confirm openly in Parliament, that Muhyiddin does indeed command a majority in Parliament. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that our ruler isn’t a constitutional monarch. It would be to argue that whatever decision our Agong makes is carte blanche for a prime minister and a coalition Malaysians did not vote for in GE14.

Our politicians

That brings me to Muhyiddin who has decided to postpone Parliament to May 18, so that he has time to decide on his cabinet, and new ministers have time to prepare for parliamentary questions.

However, there is no justifiable reason for Muhyiddin not to convene an emergency meeting, as Hussein Onn did, to prove he has the lower house’s support.

To avoid calling that meeting would only reinforce the fact that this new coalition of PPBM-BN-PAS is not the choice of the people.

First, the results of GE14 don’t support that conclusion.

Second, with the collapse of the government Malaysians voted for, it still remains unclear if Muhyiddin actually had majority support when he was appointed. Dr Mahathir Mohamad was able to demonstrate that PH had the support of 114 MPs on the morning of Muhyiddin’s appointment.

Third, Muhyiddin has refused to disclose the list of MPs who support him so that the public can decide if he has the support as he claimed.

Fourth, he now refuses to put his legitimacy to the test in an immediate parliamentary sitting.

Our vote

How does anything that has happened so far, leading to a PPBM-BN-PAS coalition in power, represent the people’s vote?

Upon his appointment, Muhyiddin took great pains to explain that he did not have a choice but to “save the country from a continued crisis”.

No, Malaysians don’t need saving. We amply demonstrated in the May 2018 general election that we are capable of making our own choices when we voted out the Umno-led Barisan Nasional (BN).

We don’t need any politician to save us, least of all one who refuses to have his legitimacy tested.

We made our choice clear in GE14. We voted in a new government because we didn’t want an Umno-led government, whose leaders are currently facing corruption charges involving billions of ringgit. Yet Umno is now back in power, because Muhyiddin says he had no choice.

But a democracy is not about any one politician’s choice. It’s about the people’s choice.

Muhyiddin may actually have the majority support of the house. But that remains untested. Can the new Perikatan Nasional government, formed by a party voted against by Malaysians, ever represent the people’s will, until its legitimacy is tested?

Jacqueline Ann Surin is an FMT reader.

✍ Credit given to the original owner of this post : ☕ Malaysians Must Know the TRUTH

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