Wrong to call Zahid’s proposed law ‘FTPA’, says Art Harun

 

Former Dewan Rakyat Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun said the FTPA is not designed to prevent any government from being brought down legitimately. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: The proposal for a special law to be enacted to prevent attempts to bring down a sitting government should not be described as the Fixed-term Parliament Act (FTPA), says a former Dewan Rakyat speaker.

Azhar Azizan Harun said the FTPA is designed to prevent a prime minister from calling a snap election at any time before its five-year term expires without the approval of the Parliament.

“The FTPA is not designed to prevent any government from being brought down legitimately by a show of no confidence or when it fails to pass a budget,” Azhar told FMT.

He was commenting on deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s proposal for a special bill to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat to prevent any attempt to unseat an elected government.

Zahid, who is also the Umno president, said such a law was vital to ensure that the ruling coalition stays in power for the full term, and to stamp out threats by the opposition to change the government.

But Azhar, popularly known as Art Harun, said what Zahid had mooted had been wrongly dubbed as a FTPA, adding that the wrong terminology had caused confusion among the public.

“What Zahid proposed is not the FTPA. He proposed something new, something not even heard by anybody else, (and) never existed in Westminster democracy (practice) as far as I know.”

Following Zahid’s proposal, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said, former law minister Takiyuddin Hassan and the media referred to the proposed legislation as the FTPA.

The suggestion, however, received mixed reviews from both sides, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim downplaying it and saying it was not a priority.

Azhar said he does not know of any Commonwealth country with a Westminster-style parliament that has a law that prevents a government from being defeated on account of a lack of confidence among MPs, whether shown through a vote of no-confidence or other legal means.

“If we pass it, we will be the first to do so,” Azhar, who was the speaker from July 2020 to December 2022, said.

Azhar, a lawyer by profession, said that in 2017, then UK prime minister Theresa May obtained the approval of the House of Commons, allowing her to call for a snap election.

He explained that the British FTPA allowed a prime minister to call for a snap election by first obtaining a two-thirds majority in the Commons.

“The power to dissolve parliament is a very important political weapon for any prime minister. He can call a snap election by dissolving parliament at any time, which is why an FTPA is vital to prevent abuse and to provide certainty as to when a general election could be called,” he said.

Meanwhile, Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University said neither the FTPA nor the anti-hopping law can prevent the dissolution of a post-election coalition government.

However, he said an FTPA enhances democracy and the power of junior partners in a coalition government by compelling a two-thirds majority for a sitting prime minister to seek an early dissolution of Parliament.

“This would mean no prime minister can unilaterally seek an election (if his government’s) junior partners are not ready.” - FMT