What’s so hard about defining anti-hopping, DAP leader asks Wan Junaidi

 

Ronnie Liu says the point made by Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar is invalid.

PETALING JAYA: A DAP leader has rubbished the claim by law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar that a lack of consensus on the definition of “anti-hopping” makes it difficult to draft a law against it.

“His point is invalid,” said DAP central committee member Ronnie Liu.

“There may be different opinions on the definition but there’s always a common basis or something we can learn from the past.”

He said an anti-hopping law would essentially mean that an elected representative wanting to jump ship would have to give up his or her seat.

“But he or she will be allowed to stand in the by-election. That’s it.”

Liu said this was the practice in earlier years, giving the example of Shahrir Samad, who quit as Johor Bahru MP in 1988 to stand in a by-election for the same seat.

Shahrir was in Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s team, which was unsuccessful in its attempt to unseat Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the Umno president in that year’s party elections. Following this, 11 disgruntled members went to court and the party was declared illegal. Subsequently, Mahathir formed Umno Baru, and Shahrir was not among those invited to join.

Shahrir, who had won the Johor Bahru seat on an Umno ticket, then resigned to stand as an independent candidate. He won.

In a press interview yesterday, Wan Junaidi said it would be difficult to formulate an anti-hopping law unless adequate engagement was held with relevant stakeholders on the term “anti-hopping”.

Subang MP Wong Chen of PKR said the lack of consensus should not be a hindrance to tabling an anti-hopping bill.

“Only by tabling it will we be able to find out the true position of each party regarding the definition,” he said.

“Getting a consensus will be challenging but we can’t delay the tabling of the anti-hopping law any longer.”

He also said anti-hopping should be related to a person and not a political party.

“The person who jumps to another party should be punished for misleading voters on policies to get elected because, in reality, these policies were written by the party,” he said. - FMT