COMMENT | The nagging issue of transition of premiership from Dr Mahathir Mohamad to Anwar Ibrahim suddenly took a new twist with parliamentary heresies cropping up from various quarters on Feb 8.
On that day, in an attempt to impose its will on the issue, opposition party PAS decided to move a motion of confidence in the coming session of Parliament for the prime minister to serve the full term, which contradicts ruling coalition Pakatan Harapan’s consensus for Mahathir to serve as an interim PM pending handing over the premiership to Anwar in mid-term.
On the same day, when questioned over the same power transition issue, and in apparent consonance with the PAS move, Mahathir said the power to decide on premiership – current and succeeding – is not the ruling coalition, but the Parliament. This is a radical shift from Mahathir’s previous stand that he would submit to the decision of Harapan as the ultimate arbiter on this issue.
These two occurrences do look bizarre from the point of view of parliamentary practices and certainly unprecedented among countries practicing parliamentary democracy – the opposition proposing a motion of confidence in the sitting prime minister, and the latter suggesting his pre-arranged handing over of power to his successor within the ruling coalition be arbitrated by Parliament.
By any measure, these ideas are perverse departures from our democratic norms.
Under the Federal Constitution, which models after the Westminster parliamentary system, it is the winning party in an election that decides on the prime minister. What has Parliament got to do with it?
Similarly, the ruling party also decides on how long the prime minister should serve or who his replacement should be. And again, Parliament has no role on such issues.
Parliament will come in only when the ruling party or the prime minister is losing the support of the majority of MPs, in which event, the PM may face a vote of no confidence against him.
This is certainly not the case now. The Harapan coalition is running a stable government and its comfortable parliamentary majority is not facing any imminent threat.
So, what is the justification for PAS to propose a motion of confidence for the prime minister, and worse, for asking Parliament to overrule an internal decision of the ruling coalition on the PM transition issue?
Such a parliamentary move is clearly unconstitutional and completely out of order.
The issue of when Mahathir should pass over the premiership to Anwar is strictly for the Harapan leadership council to decide, and no external parties, least of all, opposition political parties, should be allowed or be induced to subvert such decision-making process.
And any attempt by an internal party within the Harapan coalition to seek such intervention would be considered treasonous conduct and should be dealt with appropriately.
KIM QUEK is the author of the banned book The March to Putrajaya, and best seller Where to, Malaysia?
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
