DAP to Muhyiddin: Emulate Hussein Onn and get your majority from Dewan Rakyat
The parliamentary meeting scheduled to meet for a month from Monday, March 9, 2020 has been postponed to May 18, 2020.
This has been interpreted as “a sign of weakness” on the part of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who does not have the majority support of MPs to be the legitimate Prime Minister of Malaysia.
The holding of Parliament session during the Puasa month raises eyebrows as it must be the first time in the nation’s history of over six decades that Parliament is meeting during Puasa month.
Why can’t Parliament be convened to end its meeting before the start of Puasa month, which is expected to begin on April 25, 2020?.
Even if the first working meeting of Parliament under Muhyiddin has to be held during Puasa month, is Muhyiddin prepared to emulate the example of the third Prime Minister, Tun Hussein Onn, who had convened an emergency meeting of Parliament on January 26, 1976 – eleven days after his appointment as the third Prime Minister of Malaysia on the death of Tun Abdul Razak – to demonstrate that he had the confidence of the majority of the MPs?
It was only after a vote of confidence was passed for him on January 26, 1976 that Parliament went on with its ordinary business with the annual opening of Parliament fixed on March 30, 1976, which had as its first working business the oath-taking ceremony of the then Pekan MP, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak!
Forty-four years ago, there was no doubt or question about majority support of MPs in Tun Hussein Onn as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
But today, it is very different, as Malaysians, including the fourth and seventh Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, do not believe that Muhyiddin enjoys majority support of MPs.
Is Muhyiddin prepared to convene an emergency meeting of Parliament in March itself, as Tun Hussein undoubtedly would have done in the present circumstances, to secure a vote of confidence from MPs?
Lim Kit Siang is the DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri
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