Can Muhyiddin be trusted?

 

Speculation is rife that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will go to the palace to seek parliamentary dissolution or resignation, the latter being the only outcome.

So, his last-minute seven-point reform offer on Aug 13 to stay afloat is practically dead. It is still, and perhaps even more, important to analyse his offer and the public response to it.

“Can Muhyiddin be trusted?” is the most common response to it, but this is actually a combination of three questions:

Question 1: Is Muhyiddin sincere about reforms?

Question 2: Will Muhyiddin renege his promise?

Question 3: Should Muhyiddin be given the second chance?

Before we go further, let’s recap the three main points in Muhyiddin’s offer package.

First, Muhyiddin hits at the opposition’s Achilles’ heel that they cannot offer a majority either and any failure to produce a new government may result in a political vacuum amidst a crucial moment of the pandemic.

Second, he offers seven reforms, other than putting more money on saving lives and livelihoods, the rest are seven institutional reforms that the opposition and civil society have been fighting for:

• Equal funding for all MPs
• Two-term limit for the prime minister
• Anti-hopping law
• More parliamentary committees with 50 percent opposition chairpersonship
• Immediate implementation of Undi 18
• Pre-tabling negotiation of bills including budgets with all MPs
• Upgrading the status of the Parliamentary Opposition Leader (POL) to that of a senior minister.

Third, he offers the 15th general election (GE15) latest by next July.

In one stroke, Muhyiddin threw in three things. The first is the idea of “Constructive Vote of No Confidence” (CVNC), constitutionally provided in countries like Germany, where an incumbent government can/should only be replaced with a new government ready for a seamless transition.

Second, his reform package is an open offer of “Confidence and Supply Agreement” (CSA), a tool commonly to provide for political stability used in countries with minority governments such as New Zealand and Denmark.

Finally, he adopts Umno's idea of an “interim government” with a limited mandate on the pandemic, with a pre-fixed election date.

Q1: Is Muhyiddin sincere about reforms?

The answer is clearly no. He did it out of desperation and survival instinct.

Like former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he had no qualm to bring down the Pakatan Harapan government elected on the promise of reforms just 17 months ago.

And little if any of his government has moved on the institutional reforms promised by Harapan. He also put in place a parliamentary speaker whose partiality has been widely denounced by MPs and the public.

It’s quite amazing that he now even promised an anti-hopping law when his party had accumulated 25 party-hoppers and his coalition four more.

However, is sincerity necessary or sufficient to deliver reforms?

Politics is not love. You don’t need politicians to be sincere to love you. For insincere politicians, you just need them to be desperate.

And desperate Muhyiddin is.

And in desperation, he offered reforms that Harapan didn't talk about after GE14, even after they were put in the opposition. When did you last hear Harapan talking about a term limit for the prime minister, let alone lifting the position of Parliamentary Opposition Leader to that of a Senior Minister?

I am quite sure Harapan is more sincere than Muhyiddin about all these reforms. But why didn’t they do it? No, it was not because they didn’t have a two-thirds majority. The term limit for a PM needs a constitutional amendment but the opposition would not vote for it. Let alone empowering the POL.

Harapan was not interested in these two reforms simply because they were never made desperate enough. If they were, they would have carried them out, and Muhyiddin would have no chance to plagiarise.

Despite their call for equal funding at the federal level, Harapan does not introduce it even in the states they control. The only state that has equal funding for all lawmakers is Perak.

Is Perak MB Umno's Saarani Mohamad known as a reformist? No, he introduced it last December because he was desperate to get Harapan to support the state government.

For reforms to treat rivals fairly, desperation is a must-have while sincerity is only a nice-to-have.

Is Muhyiddin desperate? Absolutely.

Q2: Will Muhyiddin renege his promise?

If Muhyiddin’s commitment is conditional on his desperation, what happens if he is no longer desperate?

We have seen such turn-arounds in politicians like Mahathir and Muhyiddin before and after GE14. Should we not be worried about Muhyiddin reneging his promise once he survives the confidence vote? How do we ensure he delivers?

First things first, how do we make sure that he can be voted out easily?

We need some amendments to the Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders, to ensure motions of confidence/no-confidence take precedence over government business, to slash the PM’s unchecked power as the leader of the House. Perhaps, also an impartial new speaker.

Next, a modified “Fixed Term Parliament Act” that locks in the date of GE15 in July 2022, which can be changed only by a two-thirds vote in Parliament.

Straightforward changes like the PM term limit which requires only a new clause into Article 43 of the Federal Constitution and upgrading of POL which requires simple changes of law and regulations can be passed before the confidence vote on the same day.

Immediate implementation of Undi18 can happen with just simply gazetting of an enforcement date. That should happen no matter what.

The last reforms, anti-hopping law or its alternative, more inclusive lineup of parliamentary committees, and pre-tabling negotiation of bills including budgets with all MPs, cannot happen overnight.

So, what to do if Muhyiddin reneges his promises on this? Throw him out. This can be done easily with removing obstacles to a motion of no-confidence and also voting down of the budget or Royal Address. The weapons are aplenty.

Will Muhyiddin renege his promises? No, his hands would be tied.

Q3: Should Muhyiddin be given a second chance?

Even if Muhyiddin’s delivery of his promise is certain, many will still reject him, either because of the Sheraton Move or his poor governance on the pandemic and economy.

They think because he has lost the majority, which he admits, he should simply resign as per Article 43(4) which reads,

“If the Prime Minister ceases to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the House of Representatives, then, unless at his request the Yang di-Pertuan Agong dissolves Parliament, the Prime Minister shall tender the resignation of the Cabinet”.

This comes down to a procedural question: how is loss of majority ascertained? Affirmed by the court in 1966 in the Sarawak constitutional crisis and up until 2009, it was only by way of a vote in the House.

With the Perak constitutional crisis in 2009, this can now happen with statutory declarations by lawmakers, which later took the form of interviews by the monarch in the Sheraton Move.

Muhyiddin’s seeking of a confidence vote is good for both parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy.

Can he try to beef up his support before the vote? Of course, that is the idea of why the motion of confidence, like any other motion, must be debated before voting, theoretically for MPs to be persuaded before voting.

Is there anything wrong for him to offer a reconciliatory deal before his vote? No. If such an offer is “bribery on the TV to MPs”, then are election manifestos not “bribery to voters”? Would Malaysians be happier if a deal is made behind closed doors?

So, is there nothing wrong with Muhyiddin’s move? There is. He cheats by delaying the confidence vote. It should happen as soon as possible, and although no time limit is provided in the Standing Orders or elsewhere, delaying it after the Royal Speech is completely unjustified and irresponsible.

So, should not such an unjustified and irresponsible PM be ousted? Yes, but my concern is: “how?”

Muhyiddin has smartly put up two challenges to his contenders in Harapan and Umno: offering a majority with a reform package!

If the opposition can do so, Muhyiddin will be ousted in a way that makes Malaysia the big winner, because we will not only have a new government but a stable and reformist government.

Alternatively, out of our disappointing hatred for Muhyiddin, we can spare the opposition the challenge because our Constitution does not require a CVNC, and oust him first and worry later whether there would be a better government.

Ultimately, the question is not about whether we should give Muhyiddin a chance, but whether we should use Muhyiddin to give ourselves a better chance of a stable and reformist government. - Mkini

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WONG CHIN HUAT is an Essex-trained political scientist working on political institutions and group conflicts. Mindful of humans' self-interest motivation while pursuing a better world, he is a principled opportunist.

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