COMMENT | Let Harapan govern what's left of its mandate

COMMENT | After 17 months of grievous pain and suffering under a failed government, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong is called upon a second time to appoint a prime minister. Although the king has a discretion under Article 43(2)(a) of the Federal Constitution to appoint a member of the Lower House who, in the king’s judgement, is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the House, this discretion is not absolute. The king has to exercise this discretion within the ambit of the constitution.

It is hoped that the leaders of all the political parties, this second time around, can assist the king by abiding not only with the letter of the Federal Constitution but also the spirit of the constitutional conventions and essence of democratic norms.

Malaysians have paid a heavy price of a runaway pandemic and spiralling economic crisis because Muhyiddin Yasin’s administration took advantage of the fact that a written constitution by itself is not enough to protect democracy.

Malaysians have suffered the unfortunate experience of political leaders acting in bad faith by selectively and disingenuously interpreting the constitution for their political ends.

Motion of confidence

The next prime minister to be appointed must comply with the constitutional convention for tabling a motion of confidence immediately after his appointment by the king. This serves to confirm the king’s judgement. More importantly, it serves to provide legitimacy for the prime minister to govern.

The Muhyiddin administration used every trick in the book to avoid a motion of confidence. He postponed the scheduled Parliament sitting fixed in March 2020, then held a one-day sitting in May only for the king’s speech, refused to table the various motions of confidence and motions of no confidence in the next sitting, then used a public health emergency to suspend the constitution and Parliament.

In this critical time, the elected representatives were deprived of the opportunity to monitor the government’s management of the pandemic and economic crisis. We will never know the costs for this game of avoiding a motion of no confidence – how many of the 1.4 million positive cases and 12,510 deaths could have been avoided, how many of the businesses closed and thousands of jobs lost could have been saved.

This must not happen again.

Collective responsibility

Cabinet collective responsibility is a constitutional convention. When a vote of no confidence is passed in Parliament or the prime minister has lost the support of the majority in the House, it is not the prime minister alone who has to resign. The government is responsible collectively and thus the entire cabinet must resign.

For the same reason, when the prime minister is taken to have failed, collective responsibility means each and every minister has also failed, irrespective of their personal positions or that they did not privately agree with the cabinet’s policies and programmes.

Therefore, none of the ministers in the Muhyiddin’s cabinet is qualified to be a candidate for prime minister in this second round. It will make a mockery of Malaysian parliamentary democracy if a minister in a failed cabinet is appointed as the next prime minister. Malaysians have already suffered the humiliation of the seventh prime minister resigning with the intention of being appointed as the eighth prime minister.

Please spare Malaysians from further embarrassment.

Accepting election results

Accepting election results and a peaceful transition of power is one of the most important democratic norms. It is the loser’s magnanimity in accepting the results, even in a highly contentious election, that allows democracy to work.

We have seen in recent times examples of these in the US presidential elections:

• Theodore Roosevelt abided by the results in 1912 after a tumultuous election year which included his taking a would-be-assassin’s bullet during the campaign;
• Al Gore, after several recounts and court challenges on the legality of the ballot papers, conceded defeat. He said: “For the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.”
• Hillary Clinton, who despite the clear evidence of Russian intervention on behalf of Donald Trump, accepted the results. She said: “I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power and we don’t just respect that, we cherish it.”

An example of the refusal to concede and accept the election results is Trump’s calling his election loss to Joe Biden "fraudulent". The resulting march by Trump’s supporters breaking into the US Capitol was condemned by the world as a disgrace and an assault on American democracy.

For the sake of stability and democracy in Malaysia, the leaders of the parties that did not win GE14 must accept the election results. The people gave the mandate to Pakatan Harapan to govern for five years. This must be respected.

Enticing elected representatives to defect from Harapan to take over the government is a political and social evil. The political leaders must recognise that proprieties of political and personal moral conduct in the past 17 months have fallen into a morass of personal and political degradation.

The offers, counter-offers and defections have turned the august House into a shameless brothel with elected representatives being offered and selling themselves to the highest bidder in violation of the people’s trust and mandate given to them.

The democratic norm of accepting election results means that Harapan should be allowed to govern for what is left of this term. This should be done. Not for the sake of Harapan but for the sake of recognising the people’s mandate, for the country and for the sake of Malaysia’s democracy.

WILLIAM LEONG JEE KEEN is Selayang MP.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.