Gerakan man giving different views. What real affirmative does he has?

On Tuesday, the Penang Gerakan legal and human rights bureau chairman Baljit Singh had urged both Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to set aside their partisan politics to jointly legislate an anti-hoping law to protect public interests. According to the Gerakan leader, both BN and PR should do it for the sake of all Malaysians.

Baljit later said that party hopping is against public interest as it is considered as a betrayal of the voters' mandate. Yes, we firmly agreed with this Gerakan man on proposal to come up with an anti-hopping law to prevent party hopping among members of parliament (MPs) and state assemblymen (ADUN). Earlier, DAP National Chairman Karpal Singh has also stated the party's stand against party hopping and hope that both side of the political divide could come up with an anti-hopping law in order to protect the public interests.

Then, Penang Chief Minister and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng came forward to suggest that Penang would initiate a law at the state level to prevent party hopping among the state's ADUN. Yes, Guan Eng was answering to Karpal's call by becoming the first state leader have supported such proposal.

Yesterday, out of sudden Baljit reversed his statement by condemning Guan Eng's initiatives instead by calling the Penang chief minister a "wayang kulit" stage player. The Gerakan legal and human rights bureau chairman has also accused Guan Eng of trying to hook wink the people and to for more votes with his routine "politicking".

We also agreed that in order to enact the anti-hopping law into order, some barriers in the Federal Constitution would have to be removed but at the same time, these provisions, particularly Article 48 (6) and  Sub-Section 6 (5) of the Eighth Schedule can also be maintained in order to "punish" those MPs or ADUNs for their disloyalty to the people and the party that they represent.

If an MP or ADUN jump ship and he or she has to resign as an MP or ADUN and cannot re-contest, that is his or her fault for doing so. Let these two kinds of law co-exist (Article 48 (6) and  Sub-Section 6 (5) of the Eighth Schedule of the Federal Constitution and the proposed anti-hopping law) as some sort of punishment for those MPs and ADUNs involved for their disloyalty and betrayal. No big deal about this.

On Article 10 (1) (C) of the Federal Constitution which grants the citizens rights to freedom and forming of association, there is nothing that will contravene to the anti-hopping law at all. Yes, it says freedom of association, anyone can leave or join any associations of their choice but does not mean that they could misused one's position as MP or ADUN to do so.

Being an MP or ADUN are both something directly linked to the electoral process and in this case, these scenarios cannot be brought into this situation as directly contravene with affecting one's freedom of association.

If there are further arguments onto these, then we could also mention that there are many security related laws and Acts there are also contravene with the provisions of the Federal Constitution. Take for instance, the Peaceful Assembly Act, the Societies Act and the Police Act which are all directly in contravene with the Article 10 (1) (C) as well.

So, we would urge the Penang Gerakan's Baljit not to overly twist this issue into a complicated one. If you want to compare such laws with whatever stated in the Federal Constitution or what is contravene with and so on, let us talk about the rest of the laws as well. We are certain that there are many more kinds of laws and Acts that has been passed in the parliament that were either directly or indirectly contravene with the Federal Constitution.

For such issue, what real affirmative do you really have? We do not think you really have any at all. So, like what you had suggested earlier, let us sit down and work this out together not only for both BN and PR's interests but for the interests of our people.