Time to empower voters to recall political frogs

On February 23, the political drama unfolded with the "Sheraton Move" that saw the eventual collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government that was elected less than two years ago at the 14th general election.

Malaysians could only watch in horror, dismay and haplessness as the mandate given to Harapan was subverted by MPs from PKR and Bersatu who joined hands with the Opposition parties to form a backdoor government under Muhyiddin Yassin (photo, below). 

The phenomenon of elected representatives crossing over to collapse a government is not new in Malaysian politics. It was witnessed in Terengganu (1961), Sarawak (1966), Sabah (1994 & 2018) and Perak (2009) state assemblies but never at the federal level until now. 

This wave of defections has so far triggered the collapse of Harapan state governments in Johor, Malacca and Perak. 

The sight of elected representatives switching their allegiance and trading their seats for power and God knows what else, is repugnant and brought disrepute to their supposedly "honourable" positions. But as voters, whose votes put many of them into office, we are powerless as there are no anti-hopping laws to deal with these political frogs. 

The need for anti-hopping law or mechanism is obvious now to prevent such cataclysmic betrayal of voters' mandate in the future. The Penang state assembly has amended its state constitution since 2012 so that any assemblypersons will lose their seats if they join another party other than the one they contested under during the election, or are sacked by their party.

But the constitutionality of such state-level provisions is questionable and has in the past been rejected by the Federal Court as in violation of Article 10 of our Federal Constitution that guarantees us freedom of association, which includes the freedom for elected reps to choose the parties they want to associate with.

Furthermore, anti-hopping laws would give political parties almost absolute power over their MPs and state assemblypersons and the notion that our reps are free to vote or act according to their conscience or in our best interest would be banished.

The unintended consequences of such rigid anti-hopping laws may be worse than the problem it is trying to solve.

A better mechanism would be to have recall elections. It is a mechanism that allows voters in a constituency who are not satisfied with the elected rep to withdraw their mandate in another election. If the recall proposal is carried out, then a by-election would be held to fill the vacancy. 

Normally, the petition for recall must first collect enough signatures (the threshold could be something like 10 percent) of registered voters from the constituency to force the vote of recall.

Such recall elections have already been in placed and used in many countries throughout the world, from Argentina, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Philippines, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US. 

Recall mechanism is designed according to local political and social conditions. The trigger for a recall can be a popular initiative by a signature campaign or meeting some legislated conditions as in the UK.

The thresholds to trigger the process and for a successful recall can be adjusted to prevent political opponents from abusing such a mechanism but what it does is to empower voters to recall or revoke their vote for an elected rep mid-term for whatever legitimate reason.

In our Malaysian context, if such recall mechanism is already part of our election laws, it may not prevent politicians from hopping but it will make them think twice before they do. It would also compel reps to work harder for their constituents for fear of being recalled as the reason for the recall is not limited to party-hopping.

Party-hoppers often justify their actions as necessary to serve their constituents better. If true, the party-hopper may defeat the recall proposal at the poll. Unlike anti-hopping law, recall election allows the voters to decide if they side with the defector or their old party.

What happened on February 29 was a political coup by the political elites. While it is permissible under our Federal Constitution and existing laws, it goes against the spirit of our parliamentary democracy and made nonsense of the general election results.

The mandate of voters took second place to the power play of politicians.  A backdoor government may be legal but it can never be legitimised. We must amend our laws to totally prevent or at least minimise the possibility of such political betrayals by empowering voters through a recall mechanism. 

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Refer to these articles if you want to understand more about the recall election mechanism. The proposal for recall was first mooted by former chief of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall Youth Section Lee Wai Hong after the February coup. 

I would also like to credit Prof Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University for his illumination on recall election.

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The writer, Thomas Fann is chairperson of Bersih.  - Mkini