GABUNGAN Parti Sarawak (GPS) lawmakers will support the anti-party hopping bill when it is tabled, coalition’s chief whip Fadillah Yusof said.

The works minister told The Malaysian Insight that all 18 GPS lawmakers will vote en bloc in favour of the bill.

The four parties in GPS are Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu, the lead party with 13 MPs, Parti Rakyat Sarawak and Progressive Democratic Party, which have two each and the Sarawak United People’s Party, with one.

The bill was supposed to be tabled this Monday at a special parliamentary sitting but the Perikatan Nasional government of Ismail Sabri Yaakob yanked it off the table at its cabinet meeting last Wednesday to further study the definition of “party-hopping”.

Ismail had prior to the cabinet meeting given his assurance to the opposition that Parliament would sit to debate the bill on Monday.

Fadillah said the special sitting will therefore only be on tabling the amendment “to the constitution to enable anti-party hopping laws to be tabled in the next session subject to approval of this amendment”.

He was alluding to the amendment to clause 10(3) of the Federal Constitution to allow lawmakers to enact a specific law on anti-party hopping. – April 9, 2022.