WE are ‘lucky’ to have experienced three different governments, albeit the incumbent is not democratically elected. God has given us the privilege in evaluating each of them and let that be a lesson to us.

Now we are in a state of emergency not knowing where we are heading and the current state of affairs.

There seems to be no urgency to convene Parliament, despite the ‘as soon as possible’ call from the Malay rulers.

In 2015, the then administration also disregarded the call from the rulers to complete the 1MDB investigation as soon as possible and take appropriate action against those implicated.

Indeed, the casual responses to calls by the rulers will never cease to astound me.

Why are we wasting time deliberating two laws to determine who could set the date to open Parliament, ie the Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance 2021 and the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives.

Section 11 of the Standing Orders states the notice for Parliament to sit would be 28 days and it gives the right to the prime minister to decide the date Parliament will meet.

Do we need to wait for a committee to decide whether it could be a hybrid of physical and virtual presence, and seating arrangements?

Was there a committee formed to call for the emergency in the first place?

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said: “I understand my responsibilities as prime minister but I have to act fairly to ensure there are no arising issues or problems later on.”

If the government is truly concerned about the issues at hand, hybrid presence and seating arrangements are really trivial issues.

Fairness should be directed towards the rakyat, who are in dire need of a capable and good leadership.

Prime minister, as a leader, just fix a date to convene Parliament and get your minister-in-charge of Parliament to look into those issues and give a deadline.

We have so many ministers and deputies but Malaysians are not aware of what they are actually doing.

Do you care about public sentiment and people’s livelihood in this pandemic, or what the constitution says about convening Parliament?

Parliament needs to convene and discuss issues for the country to move forward. We need to seriously look to restore the moral and political foundations of Malaysia given the raging pandemic, state of the economy, exposés on corruption, political interference in the police, U-turns in issuance of standard operating procedures etc.

Time is money and I do not think we can afford to waste it anymore.

By the way, if you are strong enough, do not worry about the opportunistic prime ministerial wannabes.

What say you…? – June 26, 2021.

* Saleh Mohammed reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.