KUALA LUMPUR: The election of the Dewan Rakyat Deputy Speaker to replace Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said was postponed to avoid a “walkover”, says Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
He said this after the election to fill the vacancy was postponed for the fifth time since Azalina vacated the post on Aug 23 last year.
“There was no nomination from Pakatan Harapan. Based on a previous understanding, we would also retract our nomination to avoid a walkover. We did not want to take advantage of this,” he told a press conference in Parliament’s media centre yesterday.
Wan Junaidi said he noticed that Pakatan failed to submit the name of a candidate within the 14-day period before the start of the Dewan Rakyat.
“I noticed there was only one name and it was from the government. I then called up (Opposition chief) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who was in India at the time to inform him that there was no nomination from Pakatan,” he added.
The motion to postpone the election of the Deputy Speaker was brought up for the first time by Wan Junaidi on Sept 14 last year, again on Oct 25, followed by a motion on the same by his deputy twice this year.
