ON September 3, 2019, former MP Philip James Lee crossed the floor in the UK Parliament, defecting from the Conservative party to join the Liberal Democrats as a principled act of protest against the Tories’ hard Brexit stance.

The one-man rebellion had the effect of vanquishing Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s one-vote majority in the House of Commons. Yet Johnson limped on, albeit as a humiliated and weakened prime minister for another three months before dissolving parliament.

To even begin to comprehend the exact nature of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s resignation and therefore determining who is most culpable for collapsing the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration, we must first dispel the myth and obsession – enthusiastically whipped up by Mahathir – that a prime minister must always enjoy the confidence of the majority in Parliament.

The truth is: a majority should be sought and by all means pursued by a prime minister, but it is equally possible for a minority government to govern effectively and without hiccups.

Malaysia’s political history did not help the case for understanding the concept of governing without a majority because it has constantly delivered a winning coalition with an almost indomitable parliamentary majority since Malaya’s independence.

The 2018 change of government is considered the closest fought election in Malaysia, even though the result produced an indisputable winner with the PH + Warisan faction enjoying a healthy majority of nine seats.

Meanwhile, the historical splits and exoduses within Umno – Tengku Razaleigh’s Team B in 1987 and Anwar Ibrahim’s Reformasi movement in 1999 – failed to put a dent in the prime minister’s parliamentary majority at that time.

Then prime minister Mahathir enjoyed a two-thirds parliamentary majority and the split at that time, though damaging to the government, was not detrimental enough to overturn the majority.

Nevertheless, there is always a risk that any prime minister will lose his majority support, through suffering by-election defeats, backbencher’s rebellion – in the case of Lee – or the sudden departure of Bersatu and Mohamed Azmin Ali’s gang of 10 from PH, which was a sign of losing confidence in the governing coalition.

It goes without saying that no prime minister in the world would relish in losing his majority, but it also must be made abundantly clear that resignation is not the only option left for a minority leadership.

Take the case of the UK’s Labour Party in 1974 where it was initially a three-seat majority government, but by 1976 the narrow majority was soon eliminated due to successive by-election defeats.

Yet Prime Minister James Callaghan at the time did not do what Dr Mahathir did and abruptly resign. Callaghan, having discussed the issue with his cabinet members, decided to form a confidence and supply agreement with opposition Liberal party known as the Lib-Lab pact for 16 months. With that, the minority government led by Callaghan was able to stay in power till May 1979.

Similarly, John Major had his majority wiped out after a defeat in the Barnsley East by-election in December 1996. The immediate reaction from the enfeebled prime minister was that he did not resign and managed to survive for another few months till he was defeated by the New Labour party led by Tony Blair in the 1997 general election.

Though the nuances of political differences between Malaysian and UK politics cannot be ignored, the Westminster parliamentary system, which we inherited from the UK, cannot stray too far from what was historically ordained and tested through time.

From the intense politicking of 2020, we can broadly surmise that there are two options that could be employed to bring down a sitting prime minister in Malaysia: a show of no confidence and a defeat of the supply bill in Parliament; and by obtaining more than half of the statutory declarations from lawmakers as a form of proof to the monarch.

This is why Muhyiddin is desperate to avoid his confidence being tested in Parliament and the second condition is what compelled Sabah’s former chief minister to dissolve the state assembly in the face of Musa Aman’s show of support outside of the Residence of Sabah’s governor. 

Ultimately, these are the conditions, plus the precedence of a functioning minority prime minister, that we must hold against Mahathir’s recent self-defence by alleging that his resignation is in accordance with a responsible prime minister that has lost his majority and blame the rise of the PN government on Anwar and PH.

As I have painstakingly explained, a minority prime minister possesses the option to not resign and could try to cobble a new coalition with a stable majority to sustain the spirit of PH and the promises it has made to its electorate.

Surely the nonagenarian politician, who has dominated Malaysian politics for decades, would know that this could be done, given the fluidity of the political situation at the time. The omission of not pursuing this option, but instead resigning must be construed as Dr Mahathir’s biggest political blunder.

The two conditions that I have listed also have little chance of materialising in the midst of the Sheraton Move.

Even with Bersatu and Azmin’s gang of 10 throwing PH under the bus, Dr Mahathir still retained the support of those two factions.

This was shown by the Mahathir himself when he boasted about how all 222 MPs still wanted him to be prime minister despite his resignation, therefore there was no threat from Parliament to dethrone him at the time.

Muhyiddin Yassin only emerged as a potential prime minister when Dr Mahathir was drowning in his own political hubris by declaring his intention to form a unity government, from which he could enjoy an unrivalled executive power.

Therefore, it must also be true that the second condition would also have not arisen if Dr Mahathir did not blindside PH by resigning and bringing down the cabinet with him.

If Dr Mahathir truly regrets the supposed betrayal of his own party and Azmin, he should have ignored the overtures of Umno and PAS and stayed with PH, and not resigned abruptly.

Instead, he should have reformed the cabinet, and initiated a confidence and supply agreement with Gagasan Parti Sarawak (GPS) to keep the PH coalition.

It is regrettable that Dr Mahathir did not try his very best and with the power vested in him as prime minister to sustain the coalition. PH’s 90 plus MPs would have safely been in Mahathir’s hand if he stuck with the coalition.

The ever-pragmatic Lim Kit Siang, who has unashamedly defended Dr Mahathir’s abysmal track record on numerous occasions, also felt that the resignation and unity government proposal was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Strangely, there is also little debate on what motivated Dr Mahathir to resign hastily, only to swiftly reveal his ambitions of heading a unity government.

Any lay man would have questioned a CEO in a company for such a naïve decision, never mind the leader of the country.

Dr Mahathir’s argument that he only found out upon his resignation that he still retained his majority – therefore justified his bid to become prime minister again – is a blatant lie given that the support of Umno and PAS towards Dr Mahathir is nothing but an open secret.

Resignation is merely a political prelude to Dr Mahathir obtaining even greater power, one that would not be encumbered by the PH manifesto and, most importantly, would relieve him of passing the baton to Anwar.

It was only at the later stage, when Umno and PAS alleged that Mahathir’s unity government might render him too powerful and first without equal, that Muhyiddin emerged from the shadows to stop both PH and Mahathir.

To say that the fall of PH was caused by the nomination of Anwar is an excuse that Dr Mahathir cooked up to shield himself from the responsibility of tacitly endorsing the coming together of Bersatu, Umno and PAS.

Muhyiddin could not even come close to the premiership if Dr Mahathir did not resign. To borrow the words of the former prime minister: “jika PH menamakan saya, segala-gala yang berlaku sekarang tidak akan berlaku (if PH had nominated me, whatever has happened now would not occur)”.

The thing is, whatever has happened would not occur if Dr Mahathir did not resign. – February 7, 2021.

* 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.