PM9 Ismail Sabri(14 Months) was better than the reign of PM Anwar Ibrahim...? What do you think?
Ismail Sabri
Under Ismail Sabri, EQUAL allocation for ALL MPs, irrespective of whether government or Opposition MPs (PM Anwar has not given constituency allocations to the Opposition MPs 19 months plus after he became the Prime Minister. Still insisting that a MOU is signed, which allegedly includes a condition that Anwar will not be removed as PM until GE16?
Is
Anwar's MOU attempting to remove Constitutional Rights of MPs to decide
to support or withdraw support for a Prime Minister? Unconstitutional?
- Ismail Sabri responsible for enacting the Anti-Hopping Law.
There are still some problems in the Anti Hopping law that automatically disqualifies a MP that stood as a candidate of a particular party who then leaves the said party after being elected. Now, the Election laws only require the consent of a political party to use their LOGO - and, in GE15, candidates stood under the PH, BN or PN logo - would that not make them members of the PH, BN or PN political party. Thus when the leave BERSATU, UMNO or PKR, they may not be disqualified because they NEVER stood as BERSATU, UMNO or PKR candidates - they need to LEAVE PN, PH or BN to be disqualified. Election laws do not at present require a candidate to stipulate the political party he represents. There maybe a need to clarify this by some amendments.
Anti-hopping law clearly is to protect the peoples' rights - not the political party's rights. Thus, being expelled by party will not DISQUALIFY a MP. Only his/her leaving the political party or joining another political party will lead to disqualification.
- Ismail Sabri was the first to table a Bill to repeal MANDATORY DEATH PENALTY, but the Bill could not be passed before Parliament was dissolved for GE15. Anwar retabled the law to repeal the Mandatory Death Penalty, and added on the repeal of Life Imprisonment. Anwar is yet to repeal the sentence of WHIPPING in our criminal laws.
- Ismail Sabri, despite being from UMNO, kept the 'court cluster' out of the Cabinet but Anwar included them including Zahid Hamidi(making him also one of 2 Deputy PMs)
In many countries, they have POLLS conducted regularly to monitor the peoples' approval of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his Cabinet...This is something that we should have in Malaysia - It will be a MEANS THE PEOPLE can express themselves - and hopefully will help the PM and Cabinet reform their ways and do the right thing. Maybe, some Malaysian media or other independent groups could look into this.
Currently, there is uncertainty as to how the Prime Minister decides - does he decide alone? Or is the Cabinet involved in the decision making? A Prime Minister acting on his own without majority(or two third majority) support of Cabinet is dangerous - maybe we need a Cabinet Procedure and Decision Making Act. Likewise, it is of concern if Ministers in Anwar's Cabinet also act alone, without prior Cabinet approval at least - projects, political appointment, usage of funds, etc.
Remember, in Malaysia, our CONSTITUTION in Art.43 says '(3) The Cabinet shall be collectively responsible to Parliament.' That means every Cabinet Member is responsible for all that said/done/not done by the Prime Minister and/or any other Minister.
The executive authority of the Federation shall be vested in the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and exercisable, subject to the provisions of any federal law and of the Second Schedule, by him or by the Cabinet or any Minister authorized by the Cabinet, but Parliament may by law confer executive functions on other persons. (39 Executive authority of Federation)
Ismail Sabri’s stock rises by default
As stopgap PM he gave allocations for opposition MPs without fuss and enacted an anti-hopping law, reformasi steps now viewed as a big deal.
From Terence Netto
Malaysia’s ninth prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s stock is rising by default of Anwar Ibrahim.
Ismail, regarded as an accidental PM, accomplished two things in his brief spell as premier between August 2021 and October 2022, for which his reputation is now mounting.
He gave opposition MPs their annual financial allocations and enacted an anti-hopping law, both key demands the MPs held as imperative for their support of a stable Ismail tenure as PM.
Equal allocations for opposition MPs and an anti-hopping law have long been major priorities of the reformasi movement that the travails of Anwar Ibrahim in late 1998 caused to happen in Malaysian politics.
Both measures were important items in a long list of steps the reformasi movement pushed for in the near quarter century it took for its Pied Piper, Anwar Ibrahim, to become PM.
But when Anwar arrived in office in November 2022, he foot-dragged on the reforms, presumably from fear the Malay right wing, wary of his association with the DAP, would harden its resistance to him.
As he dithered, supporters of reformasi became disenchanted with him even as the Malay right wing crowd and the Islamists remained unpersuaded by Anwar’s campaign against corruption.
In this welter of reformist disgruntlement and Malay/Islamist sullenness, the stock of Ismail, long regarded as no more than an Umno journeyman, rose by reason of the relative ease with which he satisfied the two key demands of the reformasi crowd.
His brief prime ministerial tenure, barely 14 months, remains undistinguished but by comparison with the niggardly pace of reform under Anwar, his span is being looked at anew.
More so now, when the Anwar government has imposed several conditions for the opposition to accede to before it can be given the annual financial allocations that MPs need for their constituency work.
These conditions include a declaration of an MP’s assets and assurance of support for the completion of Anwar government’s tenure until the next general election.
The former is entirely new and was required only of MPs taking up cabinet and other federal positions while the latter is an infringement of an MP’s democratic right to choose who is going to govern the country.
Furthermore, in the list of conditions imposed no mention is made of the quantum of the allocation that an MP would receive.
In other words, the allocations cake is waved but its size is hidden.
Small wonder that political pundits are beginning to look at Ismail’s tenure as a brief span of democratic propriety before the start of an Anwar tenure, though much-awaited, has become puzzling.
It is an illustration of the truth of the saying: Be careful what you wish for.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader. - FMT,4/9/2024
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