The Rights And Wrongs

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I DON'T want to belittle Perikatan Nasional 111-109 victory at the Dewan Rakyat today. They deserved the win because they've got the numbers.

Had the Opposition managed to fish out at least two PN Members of Parliament (MPs) before PM Muhyiddin Yassin pushed the motion to replace Speaker Mohd Ariff Md Yusof, Art a.k.a Azhar Harun will end up regretting his resignation from the Election Commission.

It was a go for broke situation for Muhyiddin, who remained silent throughout the heated arguments between the MPs of both divides. Another sad scenario was how former premier Mahathir Mohamad was ridiculed by some PN reps.

However, that's how it goes. One PN MP was sicked and another chose to abstain from voting. There was nothing to the victory except for Muhyiddin's save position as the prime minister.

He faces a tough time ahead even though his Perikatan Nasional government was victorious in pushing through a new Dewan Rakyat speaker. Today’s proceedings show that the four-month old PN government will find it challenging to pass important laws, such as the national budget and the Covid-19 bill.

The announcement by deputy speaker Rashid Hasnon (PN), who did not vote due to his position came after series of counter-attack by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, Mahathir and between the government's and opposition MPs.I somehow agree with Mahathir who disagreed with the basis on which the speaker would be replaced since he had served well and at no time tried to bias to both sides. Anwar and some of his friends said it too.Here, Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim (PN-Baling) asked why Mahathir had replaced the chief judge and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief upon taking control of Putrajaya in 2018.I agree with Azeez too as both sides have their points of argument over Ariff's removal.What had befallen Ariff is perhaps the first in the history of the world, that a speaker is removed before the dissolution of Parliament. The only other country that has done this before is Trinidad and Tobago in the 1990s but this was due to an offence committed by the speaker.The House of Commons in the UK has never seen such a move over the past 800 years, while the incident in Trinidad and Tobago was due to the speaker being involved in bribery.When a speaker is appointed, he or she must not speak for the government only as he needs to speak for the whole house. What prompted Muhyiddin to remove Ariff when Azhar himself was appointed to the EC by Pakatan Harapan? However, the removal was done constitutionally by way of voting.What's the bottom line here?To me, it's not PN first victory at the Parliament but the underlying fact that the government is shaky. Since Muhyiddin did not become PM via polls, may as well he dissolves the Parliament soon and let the voters decide.No two-way about it.Owh... congrats Azalina for being the first woman to get the deputy speaker post! Nga Kor Ming made it to Dewan Rakyat's history...

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