PH needs party hoppers for stability, says don

A member of the National Professors Council takes note of the thin Pakatan Harapan majority in Parliament and some state assemblies.

Mustafa Ishak says party hopping is not a new practice. (Twitter pic)

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) willingness to accept party hoppers into its fold has prompted an academic to theorise that the stability of the new government is a major concern to the coalition.

Speaking to FMT, Mustafa Ishak of the National Professors Council pointed out that the number of parliament seats the coalition won in the recent election was dangerously small, with the same true of state seats in Kedah, Perak and Sabah. A few defections from PH could be destabilising, he added.

“Party hopping isn’t new,” he said. “When parties win with thin margins, they want to increase their numbers.”

He also said the number of Malay PH representatives in the Dewan Rakyat was small, relative to the demographics of the country and the representation of other communities.

If some MPs from Umno decide to switch sides, he added, one could interpret their decision as coming out of concern for the best interests of the Malay community.

“It is most likely that Malay MPs, if they decide to switch camps, would go to PPBM since its struggle and philosophy are similar to Umno’s,” he said.

Meanwhile, political analyst Andrew Aeria denounced those who hop out of Barisan Nasional (BN) as traitors to their party as well as to the people who voted for them.

He also accused PH leaders of holding a double standard in accepting the defectors, recalling that many of them had condemned the Perak assemblymen who switched camps in 2009.

“We cannot have double standards,” he said. “If PH wants to be a party of reforms, it must commit to these reforms.

“Naturally, reforms will take time. But there are certain red lines in the sand that shouldn’t be crossed and party hopping is one of them.”

He added that Malaysia was in need of an anti-hopping law.

On Saturday, Bukit Gelugor MP Ramkarpal Singh of DAP called on the PH leadership to reject defectors from BN, saying it was necessary to bar those who supported the previous regime from participating in the pursuit of “true reforms”. -FMT