Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad have submitted their formal letters to Dewan Rakyat speaker Johari Abdul, notifying him of their resignations as MPs for their respective constituencies in Pandan and Setiawangsa.
In a statement today, the duo said that their resignations take effect today.
"The right and honourable course of action is to return the mandate to the constituents of Pandan and Setiawangsa, given that we were elected on a Pakatan Harapan ticket at the last general election.
“We extend our deepest gratitude to the voters of Pandan and Setiawangsa who have elected us to represent them in Parliament for two terms.
"Our service centres will continue to operate as normal to provide assistance and support to constituents. We shall also contest the Pandan and Setiawangsa parliamentary seats on the Bersama platform at the forthcoming election," the statement read.
Yesterday, the former ministers announced that they will be taking over Parti Bersama Malaysia (Bersama) at an event in Petaling Jaya, which was attended by around 800 supporters.
Bersama - or the Malaysia United Party - is based in Penang and was registered in 2016.
After speeches by three youth representatives, they unveiled a new kancil (mousedeer) logo for the party, replacing Bersama’s earlier logo.
At the end of his speech, Rafizi announced that both he and Nik Nazmi will vacate their MP seats, send resignation letters to PKR, and join Bersama as members on Tuesday.
Rafizi also announced that registrations for Bersama are now open.
Addressing a press conference after the announcements, Rafizi said the order of the moves should prevent PKR from taking action against the duo for supposedly breaking their election bond with the party.
He explained that the bond with PKR states that they might be liable to legal action if they switch allegiances to another party while still being lawmakers.
Rafizi said that while the Federal Constitution states that a by-election is generally not required if a seat has been vacant for more than three years after a general election, there is also a provision allowing the speaker to call one if the vacancy affects the government’s majority.
However, Rafizi argued that the provision should not apply as the government’s majority stands at 150 MPs - after Nik Nazmi and he vacate their seats.
‘Bond applies’
PKR secretary-general Fuziah Salleh claimed to have time-stamped evidence that Rafizi and Nik Nazmi had already joined Bersama on Saturday, thereby violating their 2022 election bond with PKR.
She told Malaysiakini that the evidence referred to Rafizi and Nik Nazmi’s names being listed as Bersama's leaders on the party’s website.
However, this did not mean that they had formally submitted membership applications, as Rafizi said he would only do so on Tuesday.
Utusan Malaysia also quoted Fuziah as saying that the PKR political bureau will be discussing action against all PKR MPs who attended the Bersama event during their meeting tomorrow.
Besides Rafizi and Nik Nazmi, there were six PKR MPs at the event yesterday, namely: Bakhtiar Wan Chik (Balik Pulau), Wong Chen (Subang), Rodziah Ismail (Ampang), S Kesavan (Sungai Siput), Zahir Hassan (Wangsa Maju), and Lee Chean Chung (Petaling Jaya). - Mkini
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