YOURSAY | Hisham, look into the mirror when you utter ‘hijack’

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OrangeJaguar9341: Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, your sudden foray into the limelight indicates that you think you're taking over from Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. But you are conveniently overlooking the fact that you are part of his failed government.

Tragically, in your early steps in the “campaign trail”, you are continuing to spew nonsense. Let me highlight some of these spurious statements:

1. You urge MPs not to threaten the "existing political stability"; but there is currently no political stability.

2. You say we need political stability to deal with Covid-19, but your government has patently failed to manage this pandemic (inventing a slew of acronyms is not managing the pandemic).

3. You contradict yourself when you claim that "stability may allow Parliament to reopen". Not allowing Parliament to open has been the only consistent stand from Perikatan Nasional (PN).

4. Kindly peer into the mirror whenever you use the word “hijack”.

5. The hastily cobbled together National Recovery Plan is untenable because your government is clueless on what to do. Its desperate release on Tuesday (one day before the Conference of Rulers meeting) is also rather telling.

6. You need the mirror again when you talk about a power struggle - the main power struggle during the pandemic has been between Umno and Bersatu.

7. Your hypocrisy in calling for all MPs "to work together as a collective" is particularly galling as Pakatan Harapan has been pleading for a whole of society approach to tackle the pandemic but all their offers to help have been repeatedly spurned.

8. Having served in government for decades and ensuring that Parliament rubber-stamped government dealings and stonewalled the opposition, please do not lecture us on "Parliament's intended role of providing a constructive bipartisan discourse". It is quite offensive.

9. You assume that the opposition only wants Parliament to meet to "gain power". You are projecting your own insecurities because the only reason the government has refused to reconvene Parliament is to hold on to power. Not everyone is as pathetic.

10. Since Umno, Bersatu and PAS hijacked a democratically-elected government just as the pandemic was unleashed in Malaysia last year, you need to take a dose of your own medicine and realise that such political opportunism at that point in time "will not be judged well by the people."

Gerard Lourdesamy: What stability? God only knows what exactly is the PN's majority in Parliament given that this government has refused to test its majority in the House since last year. I can only assume it is 112 MPs. Hardly, a stable majority.

The instability in the country arose because of the toppling of the elected Harapan government by the likes of Bersatu, the Azmin Ali faction of PKR, Umno, PAS and the GPS through the Sheraton Move.

Hisham should have demanded for elections then given the unstable and small majority at the time. But the current concerns of Hisham are misplaced given the role he played last year with Azmin and his own political ambitions to be PM.

You cannot fetter and restrict the rights of our MPs. That would be inherently undemocratic and unconstitutional just like using Covid-19 and the emergency to stay in power when the government has most probably lost its majority in the House.

The role of Parliament apart from providing checks and balances, and legislating is to ensure that the government remains accountable to the people's elected representatives in Parliament.

And if the majority in the House no longer support the government, then it has to resign and allow the constitutional process to take place and another government to be formed since elections are not an option at present.

Hishammuddin must remember that the PN is not an elected government of choice of the people. So, it would be wrong for such a government to presume what is in the best interests of the people. Let our MPs decide that in Parliament.

For all you know PN may survive until next year or 2023. But these political fears of PN are not reason enough to deny the right of Parliament to meet and to discuss and debate critical issues facing the country and its people.

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