26 Pakatan MPs who were absent when POTA was passed in Parliament should resign?

26 Pakatan Rakyat was absent during the voting, and this is significant as there are now 86 Pakatan Rakyat Members of Parliament - meaning that if they were there, just 80 of them really, then POTA would NOT have been passed by the Dewan Rakyat.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill (POTA) 2015 was passed without amendment at the Dewan Rakyat at about 2.25am after a debate of more than 12 hours.The bill was passed after the ninth block voting, with the final voting favouring the government when 79 members of parliament (MPs) agreeing on the bill while 60 disagreed. - New Straits Times, 7/4/2015, Dewan Rakyat passes POTA without amendment

If you cannot attend Parliament and be there for the debates and the voting, you should just resign as MPs - as politicians, you still can be active. Let people who are committed and with capacity be MPs. 

Some of the people that Pakatan Rakyat asked us to vote in as MPs really do not deserve to be MPs. Some of these are mere 'seat warmers' - and many do not even prepare for the Parliamentary sessions. They do not ask questions - or make any intervention or comments during Parliamentary session. Sometimes, even those that make the intervention, it is obvious that they did not do the necessary research, consultation, study - for their intervention is 'foolish' or 'stupid'. Just have a look at the Hansard - and one will see these failings in some of the people that now sit as Members of Parliament of the Opposition.

An MP can put forward 15 questions every Parliamentary session -that means the 86 Pakatan Rakyat MPs can submit a total of 1,290 questions at each Parliamentary sessions. Malaysians have a lot of questions for this rather un-transparent government of the day, and noting that all parliamentary questions will be answered...we may not be happy with all the answers but we get answers. So why is Pakatan Rakyat MPs also not being transparent about the questions they asked and the answers they receive. Or is it really a case that Pakatan Rakyat MPs failed to ask questions and get answers - or failed to ask the maximum number of questions and get answers...

22 (4)  Seseorang  ahli  tidak  boleh  bertanya  lebih daripada  10  pertanyaan  bagi  Jawapan  Lisan  dan tidak  lebih  daripada  5  pertanyaan  bagi  Jawapan Bertulis  dalam  mana-mana  satu  mesyuarat  Majlis. -PERATURAN-PERATURAN  MAJLIS MESYUARAT  DEWAN  RAKYAT

See also:-  MPs and ADUNs should be FULL TIME peoples' representative ...

Remember that save for a few MPs, Pakatan Rakyat MPs have also failed to disclose their assets and income - Why? 

Is this the alternative we want? Not me - I want a real good alternative. I want real people's representatives - who would be people's representatives in Parliament and also outside...

Are the Pakatan Rakyat just inclined to chose 'YES-MAN' - people who would support them unquestioningly and with no mind of their own - people who seem to have no opinions, views ....of their own. People who who just have turned up to be nothing more than just a new breed of BN-like MPs... I remember the story of Animal Farm, and I am worried about the future...

Many are outspoken when rights violations affect their own party leaders or Pakatan leaders...but when it comes to other fundamental issues, we do not hear them speak...

YB for the alternative Member of Parliament really should not be Yang Berhormat(Your Honourable) but rather Yang Berkhidmat(One who serves the people)... but alas ..

We should demand the names of the Pakatan Rakyat MPs that were absent - and call for their resignation unless they have really very good reasons...

We should demand for the attendance list of Pakatan Rakyat MPs - not just the days they were in Parliament but also the times (some may have come for an hour or less and leave ...). Watching the live parliamentary sessions over TV and the Internet, I am shocked at the number of absentism amongst the Opposition MPs..

We should demand for disclosure of all questions asked and answers received... and also all media statements issued... In this modern day and age, it is so easy to just post it online...

Pakatan let rakyat down over Pota

 

COMMENT In a move that will have monumental impact for the country, yesterday Parliament passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) without any amendments. The vote was not even close: 79 for, 60 against.

Few doubt the return of detention without trial will go unabused.

As we have seen with the sedition dragnet of the last year, and in the examples set forth by the Internal Security Act before it was repealed, provisions meant to combat militant activities often end up being applied to activists, journalists, members of civil society, and opposition leaders.

Yet, despite the vigorous and repeated criticism of the bill, it was Pakatan lawmakers who failed to muster the numbers.

Seventy-nine votes for the bill? But Pakatan Rakyat won 89 seats in the 2013 general election — now 86, after PKR sacked Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, after losing the Teluk Intan by-election previously held by DAP’s Seah Leong Peng, and most recently, after the sodomy conviction denying Anwar Ibrahim his Permatang Pauh seat.

Absent Pakatan MPs an embarrassment

How is it that as many as 26 Pakatan lawmakers were absent from the Pota debate and vote?

By any metric this is an embarrassment tantamount to betraying the rakyat’s trust: 31 percent of Pakatan's presence in the Dewan Rakyat was not, in fact, present yesterday.

It is worth reminding these absentee MPs that they were elected to Parliament to represent the interests of their constituents, not their own.

No such example is made when these so-called parliamentarians blatantly ignore the importance of giving their constituents their voice in debates of national significance, such as Pota.

By dropping the ball, these MPs forced their 60 attending colleagues to debate a bill that was a foregone conclusion.

It is to their credit that they maintained a tough fight with over 14 hours of debate, delaying the approval of Pota until 2.25am.

But will Pakatan be able to challenge the all-too-frequent criticism that the pact prefers grandstanding to policy, now that a repressive law has returned - and will inevitably be used on dissenters from their side?

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AMIRUL RUSLAN is a journalist with another media organisation. Views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent Malaysiakini's position. - Malaysiakini, 7/4/2015