‘Bid to unseat unity govt unlikely to succeed’

PETALING JAYA: Bringing down the government via a vote in Parliament in the May-June Dewan Rakyat meeting has just become much harder after a crucial deadline passed yesterday.

The lower house’s Speaker Datuk Johari Abdul confirmed to The Star that no MP has submitted an application to table a motion of confidence in the May meeting by 5pm yesterday.

However, any MP can still submit an emergency motion for a vote of confidence during the meeting from May 22 to June 12, but it will be up to the Speaker whether to allow it.

The prospect that such a vote would take place was sparked by recent talk that the Opposition coalition Perikatan Nasional had managed to garner the support of enough MPs to unseat the current government led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Analysts have said that the most effective way to prove a prime minister had lost the mandate to govern was via a vote of confidence to show that he had lost support from at least 112 MPs in the 222-seat House.

Anwar himself had yesterday challenged Perikatan to prove its claim of having enough MPs on its side by coming to Parliament and showing proof of this.

“If he has it, then when Parliament sits, he can bring the SDs. It’s not a problem,” Anwar said, referring to statutory declarations of support from MPs that senior Perikatan leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin claimed to possess.

Political scientist Dr Tunku Mohar Tunku Mokhtar said that Anwar made this call to Perikatan in order to effectively test whether it truly had the support it claims because MPs must vote along their party lines.

Anwar’s unity government has the support of parties within his own Pakatan Harapan coalition as well as those within Barisan Nasional, Gabungan Parti Sarawak and Gabungan Rakyat Sabah.

“Anwar has learnt from the experience of the fall of the Pakatan government in 2020. That government fell not just because of the exodus of MPs from Pakatan, but also mainly because the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad decided to resign,” said the assistant professor at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM).

But political analyst Wong Chin Huat said that even if such a vote were to take place, it would be nearly impossible for Perikatan to muster enough support to topple Anwar as it would require getting 38 pro-government MPs to switch sides.

With the new anti-hopping law, most government parties would have amended their constitutions to cause any MPs to cease being members and lose their seats if they don’t vote along with the party in government matters, he added.