What’s so strange to place nationhood, unity as priorities?

I refer to Liew Chin Tong’s two-part article on what he perceived as “strange” for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, whom he fondly referred to as “elderly friend”, to have chosen to form the government with his former foes. 

Firstly, Liew must be sincere and show respect to his elderly friend in ethics and deeds.

I loathe the fact that he has shamelessly disclosed details of private conversations between him and his “elderly friend” in the most unbecoming manner of a breach of confidentiality, in which the latter confided in him his personal thoughts and emotions on occasions. 

If Liew was sincere and a true friend, he should uphold his integrity by keeping the conversations private. Writing the chronicles of events and the private views of an elderly friend who had trusted him said nothing more of Liew than being opportunistic and attempting to politically ruin the creditability of a man who is busy fighting to save the country from the Covid-19 scourge. 

The PM has been functional, steadfast and committed to lead the nation out of this crisis and he refuses to be drawn into political debates at this point. He cares more about the welfare of the people than what is said about him by being elegant and silent despite being attacked by mudslingers or those hitting below the belt.

As of now, the nation is fighting to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and with the sacrifices made by thousands of frontliners defending the lives of millions of Malaysians. 

The PM and his cabinet have proven that they were able to make executive decisions to contain the spread of the pandemic including the implementation of the movement control order (MCO) despite the decision being initially unpopular among the public. 

Leaders need to show resilience and Muhyiddin (photo) has demonstrated such qualities far beyond the expectations of many in the fight against Covid-19 and in managing the economic crisis.

Liew stated it himself in several occasions that Muhyiddin was not pleased with Dr Mahathir’ Mohamad's political manoeuvring and that Muhyiddin sensed the growing discontent among the public towards the Pakatan Harapan government and the handling of the economy and the plight of the common man. 

Yet, most Harapan leaders were engrossed in party politics pressuring Mahathir to retire. Naturally, they overlooked the severity of the Covid-19 outbreak in China, in our neighbouring countries and Malaysia.

So, when the Harapan government disintegrated towards the third week of February, the nation was at a point of break down and the subsequent resignation of Mahathir at his own accord was the tipping point. 

Muhyiddin did not ask Mahathir to resign neither did BN and PAS MPs. Instead, they all supported Mahathir to continue to be the PM then but Mahathir insisted on resigning when he was under siege within Harapan to resign or hand over power to Anwar Ibrahim. 

This was conveniently left out by all the Harapan political narratives.

There was no room for error. There was no room for a prolonged political crisis. A decision had to be made and the BN and PAS MPs backed the man they thought had shown leadership and resolve in leading the country out of the crisis, as well as the man who shared the view that the previous administration had failed to address the issues faced by the man of the street – with the economic slowdown, rising external borrowings, job losses, stagnated income levels, rising prices of goods, and many more unfulfilled election promises.

The Agong was forced to step in to save the day. He had to exercise his duty and discharged his constitutional duty along parliamentary democracy to overcome the impending political crisis at a most trialling time.

As the saying goes, “there is no permanent enemies (or friends) in politics”. Just as the case with Mahathir and Anwar and Lim Kit Siang, or Azmin Ali and Anwar. For decades, the Lim’s had condemned Mahathir but they found their common cause that led to Harapan’s victory in the 2018 general election.

Liew, perhaps you would realise by now that there is no “holier than thou” situation in politics. Every individual must act according to the circumstances for the sake of national interest and nationhood. 

There’s a bigger picture to look at instead of your partisan political narrow view. In fact, your elderly friend had exercised wisdom by taking sides with MPs who want to see a stronger economy, sufficient assistance given to the lower-income groups, and stability of government in anticipation of a collapsing government, a disrupted economy and tackling an impending pandemic of which the Harapan government chose to ignore or acted lackadaisically.

The current Perikatan Nasional government may not have been elected as Harapan lamented, but all 222 MPs who were granted an audience by the Agong on Feb 25 were, and every one of them had the opportunity to state their support for a prime minister candidate. 

The audience with the Agong was a constitutional process in accordance with Article 43(2) of the Federal Constitution, and therefore the decision of the Agong should be respected.

Perhaps what was unfortunate for Harapan was that the majority of MPs voted in favour of stronger and stable leadership, rather than party loyalty 

No, Perikatan Nasional did not grab power from Harapan. Your government collapsed and the majority of the 222 MPs took it upon themselves to save the country from political crisis – voting legally and legitimately for a new prime minister under the Westminster system in the presence of the head of state.

Harapan MPs should stop instigating the people and stop challenging His Majesty’s discretion in announcing the prime minister “who in his judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the House” (Article 43 (2a)). 

There is no provision under the Federal Constitution that the majority support must be displayed during a Parliament sitting nor the MPs must support their own political parties.

Harapan was disintegrating even before the year ended. The issue was amplified with a 94-year-old man who could not let go of power (and wants to return to power) being at loggerheads with a man who has been fighting all his life to be prime minister supported strongly by DAP. 

To them, their world was that small, but to Muhyiddin and the rest of us, the continuity of government and law and order was far more important.

Muhyiddin still refrains from reciprocating the attacks against him and prefers to focus on rebuilding the nation amid Covid-19 and solving problems faced by the common man. 

Liew, please try to rise to that occasion and have the morality to keep private conversations private.

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TI LIAN KER is MCA vice-president and deputy national unity minister. He can be reached at tilianker@gmail.com. - Mkini