The Truth Behind The “Backdoor Government”

 

Pakatan Harapan is trying to give the impression that the final say regarding who gets to form the government and who gets to become the prime minister lies in the hands of the voters. Nonsense! In the Westminster parliamentary system, the voters have no say about anything. You just vote and then go home. After that the MPs decide everything.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Until today, the Kluster anti-Perikatan Nasional are still insisting that Muhyiddin Yassin is a backdoor prime minister and the Perikatan Nasional is an illegal government. How do they come to that conclusion? Well, the the main point they have raised is that the Prime Minister and the Perikatan government did not receive the mandate of the voters.

That is not true. All the 220 members of parliament (it was 222 MPs in May 2018) were elected to office in the 14th general election. And they all took their oath of office. Hence, they are constitutionally legal members of parliament. None of them were appointed to office.

The fact that they changed parties does not change anything because Malaysia does not have any anti-hopping laws. Pakatan Harapan said they would be introducing such a law, but when they came to office they did not. And this is because Pakatan Harapan also wanted to entice Barisan Nasional MPs to cross over. Hence that law would work against Pakatan Harapan and would hinder them from stealing Barisan Nasional MPs.

So, for purely selfish reasons, Pakatan Harapan did not want any anti-hopping law, after promising they would introduce that law if they ever came to power. And this cost Pakatan Harapan the government.

Pakatan Harapan is embarrassed about the whole matter. So they are trying to shift the blame for their collapse to Muhyiddin Yassin, Azmin Ali, Hamzah Zainudin, and so on. In essence, they are saying that Pakatan Harapan is a victim of betrayal.

What betrayal? This is politics. In politics there is no such thing as betrayal. Changing alliances and crossing over are part and parcel of the game of politics. Till death do us part is a fallacy. It only happens in fairy tales, not in real life.

Pakatan Harapan is misleading the people into believing that the Agong has no say about who gets to form the government or becomes the prime minister

Those who have no stomach for such political games have no business playing politics or talking about politics. It is like war. If you want to go to war and expect zero losses, then you are not only naïve but an idiot as well. Of course people die in wars. And many of those people who die would be innocent non-combatants and civilians. That is the price of war.

Pakatan Harapan is trying to give the impression that the power to decide lies with the voters and the voters decide who should be the government. That is utter nonsense. The only rights the voters have is to mark the ballot paper and put it into the ballot box on polling day. Other than that, the voters have absolutely no rights. And if you do not like what happens after you vote, you will have to wait until the next general election to vote again.

Once you have voted you go home. They will then count the ballot papers to decide who won the contest for those 222 parliament seats. Then they will decide who from those 222 people who won the election gets to become the prime minister.

Yes, those 222 MPs will decide who becomes prime minister, not the 12 million voters who voted in the general election. The 12 million voters have no say regarding who becomes the prime minister. Only the 222 MPs do.

One of those 222 MPs will then offer himself or herself to become prime minister. In the past, it has always been the president of the party that won the highest number of seats. But that has merely been the tradition. It was never the law.

Anyone from one of those 222 MPs can be prime minister. It can even be a woman who is not Malay or not Muslim. It can even be an MP who is not the president of a party. It can even be an MP who is from a party that won the least number of seats in the election.

Muhyiddin is not a backdoor prime minister or Perikatan an illegal government according to Malaysia’s Westminster parliamentary system

In short, it can be anyone who can convince Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong that he or she has the support of the majority of the 222 MPs.

What about the voters?

The voters? The voters have already voted. So their job ends there. If they are not happy then they wait until the next general election to express their unhappiness through the ballot box. The voters have no say regarding who gets to form the government and who gets to become the prime minister. Only the Agong has.

Pakatan Harapan is trying to give the impression that the final say regarding who gets to form the government and who gets to become the prime minister lies in the hands of the voters. Nonsense! In the Westminster parliamentary system, the voters have no say about anything. You just vote and then go home. After that the MPs decide everything.

Assuming Malaysia decides to declare war on China. Do the voters have a say in that? Maybe a million Malaysians are going to die in that war with China. So why do the voters have no say? No, the voters have no say. The government decides on behalf of the voters even if that decision results in one million deaths.

For 100 years America has been sending its children overseas to fight and die in wars. Even those who survive come home with medical, psychological, and social problems and are no longer ‘normal’ people. Americans have been protesting these wars for 60 years. But nothing happens. Until today, America is still fighting wars in other countries. What the voters want, or do not want, means nothing in the end.