KOTA BARU: Turning one's back on one's own party without quitting from that party could lead to the fall of a government.
Former Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general Tan Sri Annuar Musa said this could be a likelihood following the recent actions of members of parliaments who had thrown their support behind the prime minister while defying their party.
He said this doctrine of supporting a leader while still backing a certain party without leaving their own party can cause the government to collapse.
"They have expressed their support to the prime minister regardless of their party's stance and without them leaving the party.
"This action is seen as 'hopping'' without resorting to 'party hopping'," Annuar said on his Facebook account.
The former Ketereh member of parliament said in terms of the spirit of the newly-introduced the anti-hopping law, it was clear that the act failed to prevent the MPs from hopping out their party's structure.
"This time, (it) may be (about) using allocations, projects and others as bait.
"But in my opinion, when the government itself becomes a catalyst and organiser for the acceptance of the doctrine of 'hopping without party hopping', it will affect the government itself," said Annuar, who is now Pas's deputy election chief.
He then questioned what would happen if after this, many MPs adopted the same attitude by no longer supporting the incumbent prime minister and subsequently elected an 11th Malaysian prime minister without following their respective party's stance.
"It is not impossible any more for this to occur, right?," said Annuar when ending his posting.
It was reported that two MPs from Kelantan Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) had declared their support to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the unity government.
They are Gua Musang MP Mohd Azizi Abu Naim and Jeli MP Zahari Kechik.
Both of them cited that their decisions to do so were the sake of their respective constituents.
Their move meant that there were now four MPs from Bersatu who have thrown their support behind Anwar and the Madani government so far.
The other two are Kuala Kangsar MP Datuk Iskandar Dzulkarnain Abdul Khalid and Labuan MP Datuk Dr Suhaili Abdul Rahman.