IT is hard to say with certainty these days that a prime minister — elected by the people and appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as the Federal Constitution requires — will go to bed as one and wake up the next day as such.
Read "these days" as being after Feb 24, 2020, when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was and was not the prime minister of Malaysia. Never happened before in the 61-year history of Malaysia.
It was on that day or thereabouts when the "Sheraton Move" — a game of musical chairs among fair weather politicians — was brought into play. Now almost four years on, another political plot — the "Dubai Move" — is said to have been hatched by opposition members of parliament with alleged help from some unity government MPs. Interestingly, there are more admissions than denials of a coming desert storm.
A tit-for-tat for the recent alleged enticement of opposition MPs by the unity government? True or not, we call on politicians on both sides of the aisle of the August House to desist from such games if they want to take the country to a good place.
True, the healthier political climate promised by the anti-hopping law, via Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Act 2022, has been hindered by a few drawbacks. But that doesn't mean they must be exploited for political advantage. What is good for the party may not necessarily be good for the country.
Nearly 14 months have passed since the unity government came into being and we are still talking of Statutory Declarations (SDs) and of seeking the consent of the Yang diPertuan Agong to form a new government.
This is disruptive in two ways. One, politicking such as this unnecessarily drags the palace into the arena of politics. Sure, the Constitution under Article 43(2)(a) grants the YDPA wide discretion to appoint a prime minister, with or without SDs. But the king had already done that in November.
The opposition may be thinking — rightly or wrongly — that it has the command of the majority of MPs. If that be the case, then Parliament is the best place to test the support by a vote of confidence. Perhaps they know what constitutional expert Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi told this Leader: no prime minister has been ousted by a vote of no confidence.
Because by virtue of Standing Order 15(1), government motion takes precedence over private member motion. Every speaker of Parliament has made sure that this happens.
Every step forward the country takes, politicking puts it two steps back, our second disruption. Nattering nabobs of negativity are of no help. "My way" or "your way" isn't the only path forward. There is a middle path: our way.
But this requires political magnanimity. Even ideological magnanimity. We haven't seen much of either. What we have seen much of is a constant hopeless display of political hypochondria. No nation has gone forth to a good place fired by such negativity.
There is no point for Malaysia to have a rear-view mirror. Because our neighbours who matter are all ahead. Now we must catch-up. But that is better than being forever behind.
But first, politics must learn from philanthropy on how to be charitable, kind and benevolent. Being big-hearted is always better than being big-headed.