COMMENT | Sosma defeat – stronger Parliament but no weaker government

COMMENT | The government’s unexpected legislative 85-86 defeat on the motion to renew a key provision of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) shows a stronger Parliament, but neither a weaker government nor the end of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with the opposition as alleged by some politicians who do not understand how parliamentary democracy works and cannot comprehend the MOU text in standard Malay.

Check and balance in parliamentary democracy

The first thing we need to understand about parliamentary democracy is that because the executive is a subset of Parliament (as all ministers and deputy ministers must be MPs from either the Lower or Upper House), check and balance is really performed by the opposition MPs and government backbenchers (two groups of MPs) against ministers and deputy ministers (the third group of MPs).

The government’s bills and motions getting defeated is proof that check and balance is happening and its presence should not be seen as a sign of the government’s weakness. So long as the government’s main agenda and budget can still be passed in the House, even with amendments forced by opposition MPs, the government is sufficiently strong.

The government has...