DEWAN DISPATCHES: How very ‘British’ of the Opposition MPs to walk out on Najib

By : Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT, June 30, 2008

First Gobind Singh Deo (DAP-Puchong) was ordered out of the House by the House Speaker for stridently quibbling over relevancy to tenuously tie Anwar Ibrahim with a supplementary question about housing, then his tribe of Oppositionists, led by his mentors Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) and his father Karpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Gelugor), stage crafted a wholesale walkout of DAP, PKR and Pas MPs to discompose the House over a procedural feud whether the Datuk Seri Najib Razak can speak or not.

While Gobind was fuming outside the House for his unceremonious ejection, the full complement of the Opposition MPs decided to join him in equal fulmination – perhaps to get back at House and Barisan Nasional for red-carding Gobind – by protesting the Speaker’s decision to permit the Deputy Prime Minister to make a ministerial statement on the Mid-Term Review of the 9th Malaysia Plan tabled by the Prime Minister on June 26.

So what’s the big beef about such a mundane procedure? It would seem that it had something to do with Malaysia’s former colonial master’s ways and means on House conduct and propriety. At best, the walkout was could be pictured as niggardly pedantic and at worst, it bordered on boorish formalism.

Although Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia invoked Standing Order 14 (1) (i) greenlighting Najib to table his ministerial statement, the Opposition MPs wasn’t buying into it, resolutely contending that any correction or addition should be brought forth by the PM. Najib counterargued that he was tabling the ministerial statement because he seconded the tabling of the Mid-Term Review.

It would seem the procedure approved by the Speaker had a contentious consequence – it defiled Westminster and Commonwealth conventions, making Najib’s ministerial statement improper. The whole walkout was for that reasoning?
Kit and Karpal were quick and attentive to alert the Speaker that Najib’s initiative was “hostile” to British propriety. In good form, Kit produced an overblown criticism of the Speaker’s approval – that it tantamount to “reckless disregard of parliamentary practices, procedures and rules.” Najib, he countered, was allowed to misuse the Standing Order.

"He should have made all the remarks he wanted to when he was seconding the Mid-Term Review. Not now. It should have been done immediately. He is trying to have a second bit at the cherry. This is a gross abuse of parliamentary standing orders," Kit charged. “It sets a most dangerous precedent that the government front-benchers can abuse the standing orders at their whim and fancy. It is being perverted to accommodate Najib.”

Kit went on to contend that the proper subject for ministerial statement would be the Government’s position on Anwar Ibrahim, who at the time of this writing, had left the Turkish Embassy after holing up overnight as a precaution against death threat.

The Speaker, unperturbedly, invoked Standing Orders 43 and 99 to make his decision final, challenging dissatisfied MPs to table motions to contest it. In his blog, Kit indicated that substantive motions will be submitted to review the Speaker’s alleged misuse of Standing Orders and also to steer attention to Gobind’s ejection.

Soon after, Mahfuz Omar (PAS-Pokok Sena) launched a leading question to Pandikar Amin, asking the Speaker if he was admitting that the PM had erred when he tabled the MTR on Thursday. "Are you saying that the PM's speech was incomplete?" he said but Pandikar Amin refused to take the bait of Mahfuz’s fishing expedition.

But from there on, all of Pandikar Amin’s efforts to instruct Najib to start addressing the House fell into a vortex of Opposition whirlpool where at one stage, Dr Dzulkifli Ahmad (Pas-Kuala Selangor) told the Speaker he must offer a good reason for allowing Najib floor time. "You have not told us a reason for allowing this. Give us one good reason," beseeched Dr Dzulkifli.

Pandikar Amin ignored the Opposition’s escalating entreaty and still repeated his call that Najib proceed, only for Karpal to interfere as he quoted the British House of Commons convention and practice that if anyone should be allowed to make a ministerial statement, it should be the PM. "That is the House of Commons practise. Should not the Prime Minister be making the statement?" Karpal asked.

It was probably exasperating for Pandikar Amin to sound like a broken vinyl record but he duly repeated his earlier statement that he was using his discretion to allow Najib floor time. "I look at the conventions in Commonwealth countries when I make my decisions. Not just one country. I have to think of everyone's interest," he sighed.

Sensing finally that the Speaker, putting his authoritative weight on the issue, was not going to budge, the Opposition finally relented and waited for the Speaker to instruct Najib to speak. However, when Najib rose to begin his address, Kit, like the great tribal chief that he is, signalled his braves to walk out of the House, muttering that it was pointless to stay inside the House.

Predictably, the BN backbenchers reacted to the affront with loud jeers but the Pakatan Rakyat MPs refuse to be drawn into a reaction and walked out silently, smiling and grinning at the contrived procedural fuss they had triggered.