PRIME Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s special announcement today was full of hypocrisy and tricks made only to hang on to power, said Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman.

The former youth and sports minister said Muhyiddin was acting in desperation by making the generous offer today as he already knows he is at the end of a losing battle.

“When power and position are at the tip of the horn, that is when you seek out the opposition to sit at the same table,” Syed Saddiq said.

“All (proposals) were made only to stay a day longer as the rights were already stripped by the loss of the majority support in the Dewan Rakyat.

“When they are on the verge of losing power, that is when they think of giving the same annual allocations to opposition MPs. For almost two years, the opposition has not received the same allocation from the Perikatan Nasional government.”

Syed Saddiq said the opposition had appealed to the prime minister previously for equal allocations just to help the needy, but nothing came.

“Now, they are willing to bargain just to keep power that has been taken away,” he said in a Facebook post today.

In a live telecast this evening, Muhyiddin outlined an offer to opposition MPs today to get bipartisan support to stay in power and steer the country out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He promised the several reforms if survived a confidence vote in Parliament next month. 

These include equal funding for all MPs for constituency needs, a limit to the prime minister’s term, implementation of Undi18, and greater checks and balances in parliamentary committees.

Syed Saddiq, however, questioned why Muhyiddin also agreed to these reforms now when they had been proposed by the opposition previously.

“From last year, I’ve asked the PN government to listen to the voices and suggestions of the opposition but they never did.

“Suddenly today, he asks for bipartisan support and calls for a cross-party understanding framework.

“Today, he wants to ‘appear’ democratic. If he is, then he must allow Muda to be registered and let democracy flourish with youth political parties,” the Muar MP added.

He was referring to his youth-based political party, which failed in its appeal to the home minister to have the party registered with the Registrar of Societies.

Syed Saddiq also took a swipe at Muhyiddin’s pledge to enact anti-hopping law and carry out parliamentary reforms if he survived the confidence vote.

He said the PN government is made up of party-hoppers.

“The PN government was formed from (politicians) who jumped party, and suddenly Muhyiddin wants to enact an anti-hopping law. Weird. 

“Did the prime minister forget that over a year ago, he had invited me to leave Pakatan Harapan (PH). Isn’t that an invitation to jump out of PH?

“He also said he wants to reform Parliament. Did he forget that the federal reserve unit team was sent to prevent the opposition MPs from entering the Dewan Rakyat?” Syed Saddiq asked, referring to a protest by MPs outside Parliament gates on August 2.

He called on Muhyiddin to stop wasting time and step down honourably. – August 13, 2021.