More MPs are pushing for the Parliament to reconvene amid the reopening of the various sector as the government eased restrictions on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang said the bi-partisan committee advising the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the emergency should inform the ruler that the emergency does not preclude the convening of a special Parliament sitting.
He added that even though Parliament is suspended, the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance 2021 allows the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong to convene a special sitting as he deems appropriate.
He said Parliament is necessary to ensure accountability amid an unprecedented amount of funds being spent to fight the pandemic and also the upcoming vaccination plan which is going to be the country's largest in history.
"There is no reason why Malaysia should ban Parliament from its parliamentary role to scrutinise the executive and ensure that there is an effective and efficient ‘all-of-government' and ‘whole-of-society’ strategy and approach in the war against Covid-19 pandemic.
"Other countries including those with a significantly higher number of Covid-19 infections have not suspended their Parliament," said the DAP lawmaker.
Meanwhile, Selayang MP William Leong called for the outright repeal of provisions in the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance that allows for the suspension of Parliament.
"I call on the prime minister and the cabinet to advise the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to repeal Sections 14 and 15 of the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance so as not to frustrate the basic operations of the nation’s constitutional democracy.
"Using a public health emergency to justify the suspension of democratic controls of governance is not the response of a democratic government. It is the hallmark of a dictatorship," the PKR lawmaker said in a separate statement.
Yesterday, Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Azalina Othman Said, who is Umno's Pengerang MP, also wrote to attorney-general Idrus Harun complaining that Parliament had been "emasculated".
The push has also received support from 90 current and former MPs in the region who signed an appeal for the reopening of the Malaysian Parliament.
The current and former MPs are from Thailand, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Philippines, Singapore, and Myanmar.
However, the involvement of international MPs has irked PAS which nit-picked at the fact that Timor-Leste was not part of Asean and complained that not all the signatories are sitting MPs.
PAS Youth chief Khairil Nizam Khirudin called the move an "embarrassment" and suggested that local MPs may have a hand in orchestrating the statement.
"PAS Youth does not want to talk at length about who they (signatories) are but is the pressure coming from the tainted hands of MPs from our own country in order to tarnish Malaysia in the eyes of the world?" Khairil said in a separate statement.
Khairil said government and opposition leaders should instead focus on bringing the pandemic under control.
"After it is resolved, then we can compete in the general election which the prime minister had indicated will be soon...," he said. - Mkini
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