SHOULD a special Dewan Rakyat sitting be called to debate Covid-19 matters, Pakatan Harapan will not take advantage by calling for a motion of no-confidence in Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

“I specifically made a call to convene a special parliamentary sitting to debate the measures to be undertaken on Covid-19 and I was given assurance that the issue of no-confidence would not arise,” PKR president Anwar Ibrahim said today in a press conference telecast from his home in Petaling Jaya.

Anwar had earlier this month proposed a sitting to discuss the government’s RM250 billion stimulus package announced by Muhyiddin.

The package is yet to be tabled in parliament.

Muhyiddin’s Perikatan Nasional government came into power in early March after ousting PH through defections and political manouevreing.

The PN government’s legitimacy has been questioned by critics, and the opposition has called on the prime minister to convene parliament to show he has the support of the MPs.

Anwar said today it remained the PH lawmakers’ prerogative to move a confidence vote in a regular sitting in the future, and that the “the government can’t use Covid-19 forever” to evade questions over its legitimacy. 

On March 1, immediately after PN was declared the new government, former PH chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad had called for an emergency sitting to determine if the coalition made up of Bersatu, PAS and Umno had the numbers in parliament.

Dr Mahathir has since conceded that following several defections from PH to PN, he no longer believed he had the support to win a confidence vote.

Anwar said he would welcome any government proposal to amend the law to raise debt for expenditure. Currently, the government is allowed to raise debt for development but not for operating expenditures.

“If it allows for more room to ease the problems faced by the poor, we are of course open to it. But prior to that the government must take effective measures to ensure there is no waste.”

“You cannot appoint more than 70 cabinet members and (backbenchers) to GLCs for all the perks,” he said, in reference to the recent removal of PH-appointed heads of several government-linked companies and agencies amid the health crisis. – April 14, 2020.