IN Malaysia, we are often treated with appalling political blunders with spectacular social cost and ramifications, and these gaffes are often stemmed from the lack of forethought or even basic empathy from ministers.

This is akin to how great power was misused, but in a very egregious and comical fashion.

One should not look further than the use of emergency by former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who had given Malaysians haphazard lockdowns and lopsided standard operating procedure.

It is patently obvious the country at that time needed an economic boost while at the same time targeted and systematic restrictions.

Instead, the government that had presided over a 2020 lockdown had learned nothing about balancing public health and economic livelihood, as the emergency power was used instead to mainly suspend Parliament while other sectors are allowed to operate.

Moreover, in a desperate attempt to curb the epidemic while not bleeding the economy, periodic and half-baked lockdowns were pursued instead, which continually disrupted the lives of ordinary citizens and inadvertently delayed Malaysia’s route to health and economic recovery.

Make no mistake, the narrow defeat of the motion to extend the power of the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma), to detain without trial for another five years was another political blunder of the government.

In fact, Home Minister Hamzah Zainuddin should tender his resignation for putting himself on the line and speaking defiantly about the use of Sosma as paramount to maintaining law and order.

Although it was a close case, the vote showed that the House disagreed with what the home minister had proposed.

However, another consequence of political blunders in Malaysia is that perpetrators would almost never take responsibility for their errors, and this would most likely apply to the home minister too.

One may ask how was this a political blunder given the slim majority this government enjoys? This is because how politics and Parliament work in this country is completely advantageous to a sitting minister who wanted to pass a simple motion.

For starters, the executive has absolute power to set the agenda for Parliament, which means ministers are completely authorised to decide when and how a motion should be tabled.

Therefore, the Sosma’s extension was a pre-emptive strike against the opposition for the latter only found out the motion would be tabled and even scheduled for a vote when the order paper was released.

While I personally believe it is almost unparliamentary to ambush your legislature colleagues in such a manner, especially when the motion pertained to controversial detention without trial, we nevertheless are forced to concede that it is within the law for the home minister to exercise a legislature ambush given how uneven our Parliament operates.

Another task for the home minister is to make sure there are enough votes to support his motion to avoid a humiliating defeat. In short, the home minister needs to ensure that the numbers of parliamentarians who are voting to support the motion is much bigger than the opposing side.

Again, this could be easily done and there is an inherent advantage the executive enjoys.

Our Parliament is often criticised for not acting stronger or more independently and one of the reasons why it was meek in the first place is that parliamentarians are mostly a tamed beast under the political party or parliamentary whip.

It is not the tradition for MPs to cast a protest vote or abstain against his/her party wishes.

Our lawmakers are more compliant than the constituents would want to believe and in Parliament, it is what the party dictates that matters.

Therefore, it is very unlikely that any Barisan Nasional and Perikatan Nasional MPs would vote against the home minister’s wishes, even when the relationship is increasingly fractured.

Lest we forget, there is an even more compelling reason for Najib Razak and Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to support the Sosma motion, given that it was the former that introduced the Act while the latter had even utilised Sosma to detain political dissidents such as Maria Chin Abdullah and Mandeep Singh.

There were also rumours of some MPs being absent during the voting process as an act of orchestrated political sabotaging from the notorious court cluster to accelerate the date of the next general election.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang was also absent during the voting process and the government only needed one extra vote for the defeat to be overturned.

Equally, it is also true that the parliamentary footage showed there were some government ministers and backbenchers who were late to the voting process and their votes were not taken into account.

If those lawmakers were allowed to vote, I would suspect the Sosma motion would have easily passed.

The blame, therefore, must again solely rest on the shoulders of the home minister for not coordinating and even doing a rough calculation on ensuring supporting MPs were in full attendance.  

It is most likely the ambush that I spoke of previously, had also similarly surprised the government backbenchers.

Thus, the challenge – if there was any to begin with – was for the home minister to ensure his side of MPs to be punctual and remain on the floor during the voting process.

Yet, this was where the home minister had seriously erred as he failed to mobilise, summon, or even cajole MPs to be present.

It is a mistake of such simple nature that Malaysians may be finally waving goodbye to the spiritual successor of Internal Security Act.

Right after the motion’s defeat, the inspector-general of police had swiftly released a statement commenting that the pre-trial detention of 28 days for Sosma would be allowed to expire and if the motion was not overturned, it was very likely there would be no arrest under the preventive law after July 31, 2022.

This is all no thanks to the home minister’s blunder and this time, it is actually a blunder that benefits the country. – March 27, 2022.

* Kenneth Cheng has always been interested in the interplay between human rights and government but more importantly he is a father of two cats, Tangyuan and Toufu. When he is not attending to his feline matters, he is most likely reading books about politics and human rights or playing video games. He is a firm believer in the dictum “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.