Delay or no delay, leaders say Bill needs to be tabled

Showing concern: (From left) Ahmad Zahid, Chong and Nazri.

PETALING JAYA: “Park it first, tweak it later,” says senior Umno lawmaker Datuk Seri Nazri Abdul Aziz following a delay in tabling the anti-party hopping Bill.

“I have said before to park the Bill first in the Dewan Rakyat.

“Allow us to debate it. The Bill can be tweaked later (before voting),” he said when contacted.

The Padang Rengas MP and former law minister acknowledged that the government was being careful over the Bill as it required amending Article 10 on freedom of association.

“The government could table and pass the amendments to the Constitution on April 11.

“It will perhaps take an hour or so. Once amended and if there are no restrictions, they can then table the Bill,” he said.

Nazri said the Cabinet should not wait for a unanimous consensus to table the Bill.

“It should not be up to one or two ministers to decide when the Bill should be tabled unless they themselves are guilty of being party hoppers previously,” he said.

He also opined that no right-minded MPs would be against the Bill unless they “intend to switch parties in the future”.

MCA secretary-general Datuk Chong Sin Woon said a delay in tabling the anti-hopping law was acceptable if it meant having a better law in place instead of rushing it through Parliament.

His party, he said, had been consistently against party hopping but was not keen on seeing amendments to the Federal Constitution.

“The proposed amendments are on liberties such as freedom of association.

“We are concerned that amending the Constitution will alter the spirit of the Constitution,” he said when contacted.

He also said the definition of party hopping should be less stringent as the current proposal included MPs who had been expelled by their respective parties.

Such a definition could result in the stifling of voices of dissent within the party, he said, adding that enacting a Recall Vote Bill would be a better alternative to amending the Constitution.

The Bill was supposed to have been tabled on the last day of the Dewan Rakyat meeting on March 24 but was postponed to April 11.

Yesterday, the government said it would table amendments to the Constitution this Monday in Dewan Rakyat.

The date for another special Parliament sitting to table the Bill will be fixed for a later date.

The last-minute postponement was due to differences among some MPs over matters such as recall vote and the definition of anti-hopping.

The move to table the Bill is in line with the memorandum of understanding signed between the Federal Government and Pakatan Harapan last September to initiate political reforms before July 31 this year.

In a Facebook post, Umno president Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi alleged that “internal saboteurs” could have resulted in the delay.

The Bagan Datuk MP said the people would be “sorely disappointed” as they had been waiting for the Bill to be passed.

He noted that Umno was the “biggest victim of party hopping” following GE14.

Since May 2018, 33 MPs have either switched camps or left to form new parties, of whom almost half were from Umno.

Party hopping has led to the change of administrations at the federal and state levels, resulting in political instability.

Separately, the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) said the delay was acceptable if it meant that more effective laws would be tabled instead of the current draft law.

The group added that the proposed law should be tabled by early July and was optimistic about it getting the necessary support from the MPs.