THE chickens have finally come home to roost. The emergency that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has been so desperate to get has finally come back to haunt him. 

The immediate resignation of a prime minister that has received a royal rebuke of misleading Parliament and subverting the constitutional process should be the order of the day in a proper democracy.

Except that Malaysia is not a proper democracy and as things stand, Muhyiddin might just be surviving with his premiership hanging by a thread.

Some would argue that the intrusion of Covid-19 has certainly complicated or even compromised our political system.

Indeed, what Covid-19 has brought other than the loss of lives and livelihood is the inability for democracy to prevail in times like this.

The power to hold an election and therefore, returning the mandate to the people at such times is certainly absurd, but ironically, it is the only democratic alternative that may potentially satisfy every political party in this country.  

Having said that, a mature and healthy political system should be constructed with much resilience that at least democracy would be the only game in town despite what crisis the country is currently facing.

The war cabinet in the United Kingdom that involves cross-party cooperation and how Parliament was still allowed to convene during World War II proves that democracy and Parliament do not need to be suspended for the “greater good”.

Instead, hours of crisis are perhaps the time where the weakness of our political system is further accentuated or exploited.

What has been haunting the prime minister ever since he was appointed in early 2020 revolves around the question of legitimacy. And his worry is entirely justifiable given that in the midst of the 2020 political crisis, Barisan Nasional (BN) and PAS initially wanted a fresh election.

The controversial en bloc support from BN and PAS only materialised when the monarch had no intention of allowing the country to go to the polls when Covid-19 had begun spreading throughout Malaysia.

In retrospect, it is debatable that Muhyiddin enjoys the confidence of the house, especially when Umno veteran MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah recently stated that he has never supported or been with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government.

Under such circumstances, the most likely scenario in established democracies would be a confidence motion in Parliament to legitimise the standing of the prime minister.

Yet, other than trying to shore up support through ministry and GLC appointments, the prime minister has blatantly avoided a test of confidence by allowing the Parliament to sit for a day without any motions nor voting in May 2020.

Undemocratic it may seem, but whatever he has done thus far – be it overseeing one of the largest cabinets and political appointments and eschewing Parliament – is perfectly legal and speaks of the overwhelming political power Malaysia’s prime minister has, with which he could bend the Parliament at his will.

The first emergency that he failed to gain royal consent during October 2020 should be viewed through a similar political lens, where it was another means which the prime minister used to circumvent a confidence vote of his budget. 

He did not prevail at that time and his budget was only passed by the thinnest of majority, but having said that, there is also no question of his legitimacy or premiership.

Though the majority is wafer-thin at 111, the significance is that Muhyiddin at that time did enjoy the confidence of the House and it also repelled, albeit momentarily, the claim laid by the oppositions that he did not have the necessary numbers.

In the heat of the constitutional dispute between the palace and the government, it is rooted from an emergency that was clearly instituted to circumvent Parliament, rather than combatting Covid-19 as we were led to believe.

The disappointment that the palace has made known publicly now is because of another attempt from the government to avoid a vote on the Emergency Ordinance that has since turned into a blunder.

It is safe to say that if the Parliament has any semblance of independence, it would require a more impartial speaker who allows the tabling of emergency or confidence motions. The prime minister would surely be forced to resign, and therefore preventing a potential collision course with the monarchy.

Having said that, the prime minister still survives mainly because of the inability of those who are against his premiership to offer a prime ministerial candidate.

Neither Anwar Ibrahim, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Zahid Hamidi nor even Najib Razak can prove capable to unite everyone who has no confidence in Muhyiddin.

Secondly, the fact that Zahid and his acolytes are training their guns solely at Muhyiddin, but not his PN government, also speaks to the fact that Umno still wants the PN government to stay intact. It aims to have an Umno MP, presumably the deputy prime minister, to replace Muhyiddin – and not a wholesale change of administration.

Essentially, Zahid wanted to recreate the fall of the Bersatu menteri besar last year in Perak, and install Umno’s very own man. 

This also shows how problematic our political system is, as it has clearly vested too much power in a single individual to the point that Umno would not be satisfied as long as the position is not within its grasp.

While the removal of the prime minister, who has clearly failed to manage the Covid-19 crisis and misled the Parliament, is necessary, changing the personnel without changing the system or reforming necessary institutions may lead to the same outcome, especially when the country is still grappling with the pandemic. – August 1, 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”.