Commentary by Mustafa K. Anuar

NEVER in the life of this country since independence has it been so excruciatingly difficult to convene a parliamentary sitting.

Parliamentary sessions have become few and far in between since the nation was rocked by the Sheraton Move last year. To successfully fix a date for a meeting is perhaps already a feat in itself.

It is almost surreal that the resolve of the opposition to go to Parliament for the purpose of work and discussions of matters of national import, such as the pandemic, people’s lives and livelihoods, is matched by the determination of the government to stop them from doing.

One hundred and seven MPs were stopped when they tried to go to Parliament. It wasn’t the building security personnel who refused them entry.

It was the Federal Reserve Unit, which is usually deployed to control street riots, that was assigned to prevent the MPs from even reaching the Parliament grounds. 

There was a face-off between this unit of the police force and our elected representatives, who were reportedly threatened with arrest if they attempted to cross the line. It seems ironic that the Parliament was barricaded against the parliamentarians. 

The police later explained that the MPs were stopped from entering the Parliament because an “illegal rally” in support of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was said to have been planned on the Parliament grounds.

This, however, had left detractors wondering whether stringent police checks could have been mounted instead at the entrance gate of the Parliament to ensure that only bona fide lawmakers were allowed in. That, according to this argument, would effectively filter out any troublesome elements on the Parliament grounds.

Be that as it may, the end result was that the lawmakers couldn’t go to work, with the exception of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair Wong Kah Woh who, after going through much hassle with the authorities, managed to enter the Parliament.

Wong and his team held a scheduled PAC hearing on the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines, where Health Minister Dr Adham Baba, Health Ministry secretary-general Mohd Shafiq Abdullah, Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency director Dr Roshayati Rusli gave their testimonies.

So, despite the brouhaha and lurking virus, it looks like work can still be carried out in the august House.

As intimated above, the MPs’ planned trip to the Parliament was in defiance of the temporary closure of the Parliament by the government beginning July 29, as endorsed by director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Noor Hisham issued a directive to close the Parliament for two weeks after he claimed that there were several officers associated with the Parliament who were infected with Covid-19 virus.

His assertion was, however, disputed by lawmakers. For instance, Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii, who is also the chair of the parliamentary select committee on health, argued that the “CT level” cited by the health director-general to justify shutting Parliament for two weeks was not a metric for public health decision-making.

Besides, Yii added, there wasn’t a need to shut the entire Parliament just to deal with 0.9% of positive cases in Parliament. In contrast, the Parliament was allowed to reconvene on July 26 when the percentage of positive cases in Parliament was 2.8%.

If the health safety of our lawmakers is of utmost priority for Noor Hisham, then the question posed by critics is, why didn’t he show equal concern for the health security of ministers who converged at the prime minister’s residence recently? Shouldn’t such an enclosed and large gathering be objected to in the interest of possibly preventing a ministerial cluster? 

In the meantime, the Parliament building stands still for two weeks while national politics still rumbles. 

Parliament sadly appears distant not only to the lawmakers, but also ordinary Malaysians who are still grappling with the Covid-19 virus and the fledgling economy.  – August 3, 2021.