PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail has argued that PKR’s past history of pursuing MPs from rival parties to support party president Anwar Ibrahim’s prime ministerial bid does not suggest its endorsement of party-hopping.
In a report by news portal Free Malaysia Today, Saifuddin said friendly MPs from rival parties were able to throw their support behind Anwar's bid to be the prime minister without having to change party allegiances.
“We (the opposition) sought support from other parties as we needed at least 112 MPs to form a government.
“However, we didn’t ask them to switch parties but merely provide additional support for Anwar (to become prime minister),” he said.
This was in reference to Anwar’s past claim that he possessed a "convincing, formidable and strong" majority to form a government, in the months that followed the Sheraton Move in 2020.
Saifuddin, who is also the Transformation and Political Stability Steering Committee chairperson, further explained that the opposition chief should not take the heat for the decision to woo rival MPs as it was a collective decision made by the party members.
The proposed anti-party hopping bill was one of the main reforms lobbied by the coalition when it formally inked a confidence and supply deal with Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob's government.
The much-anticipated anti-party hopping bill was not tabled on March 21 nor April 11 as originally promised by the federal government.
Instead, the Dewan Rakyat decided that the bill needed to be further worked on by an 11-member bipartisan select committee headed by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Parliament and Law) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar. - Mkini
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