A muddled affair

Despite anti-hopping law, loopholes in enforcement raises questions on politicians’ loyalty to their own party.

NO sooner after social media celebrated the best moments of 2023 and prayed for stability in 2024, the “Dubai Move” emerged: another alleged power grab in Malaysian politics supposedly brewing. (In Western democracies, commentators tend to suffix ‘-gate’ to everything to denote a scandal, after the Watergate scandal; in Malaysia, we have become equally good at appending any geographical location with ‘Move’ to signify an intended change of government through means other than general elections.)

That some parties and MPs still entertain such notions is a challenge to the wishes of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who has repeatedly called for political stability.

Perhaps the rabble rousers are hinging on His Majesty’s statement in February 2023 where he hoped that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim would be the last Prime Minister appointed during his reign – thus, they are hoping to commit the deed during the reign of the next Yang di-Pertuan Agong, due to begin in a few weeks.

On social media, it seems the prevailing hope is that the new King will also not entertain such nonsense from our politicians.

Indeed, in a recent interview, the Sultan of Johor said that as federal head of state, he will place the interests of the 30 million Malaysians above that of the 222 politicians in the Dewan Rakyat.

Of course, mid-term power grabs remain unusual in any parliamentary democracy, in which Members of Parliament are expected to remain loyal to the platform on which they were elected.

As I have written before, there are legitimate cases where an MP might want to rebel against their leader and party whip, but the “moves” are occurring with such regularity that any such justifications will not be believed.

Since the Perak crisis in 2009, which caused the downfall of the state government, any such episode is assumed to be about party leaders spending money to buy elected representatives.

The disgust of Malaysians towards this phenomenon is why pressure for the anti-hopping law grew in the first place, and indeed amendments came into effect in October 2022. At the time, many legal commentators pointed out imperfections in the law, and subsequent events have highlighted many loopholes.

In recent past months, several Perikatan Nasional MPs have declared their loyalty to the Prime Minister while remaining in their parties, arguing that doing so is beneficial to their constituents through increased allocations for their constituencies. That this is permissible at all seems to contradict the spirit of the amendments, but it also raises the point about unequal resources in the first place.

As many civil society organisations have been arguing for years, MPs should receive equal resources by virtue of being parliamentarians, not because they support a party or politician. The present situation empowers the government of the day to entice opposition MPs with this carrot.

Of course, financial incentives can come from other sources too. Amidst the alleged Dubai Move, people are speaking of millions of ringgit changing hands. That is why we also need to strengthen political financing fundamentally.

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) is the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Political Financing, and has proposed legislation that will make donors and recipients alike to declare contributions, which would be capped at limits set by law.

It seems enthusiasm for this reform is not as universal or consistent as we had hoped, but MPs should realise how damaging it is to all of them that their loyalty is seen as negotiable.

Alas, naysayers will say that neither of these reforms will really work (just like the anti-hopping law, there will be loopholes or gaps in enforcement), but to argue that we should not even try based on this assumption is incredibly defeatist. Changing the culture and strengthening the law must go hand in hand.

I just watched Man on the Run on Netflix. It isn’t perfect, but it still is a reminder of what happens when we fail to protect independent institutions meant to serve as checks and balances.

As the beginning of 2024 sees more muddles in Malaysian politics, it seems civil society, hand in hand with the rakyat, will have to continue being guided by the principles of our Federal Constitution in holding politicians of all sides to account.

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is founding president of Ideas. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.