PAKATAN Harapan (PH) will meet with Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to discuss the anti-party hopping bill. 

In a statement today, the presidential council expressed disappointment over the government’s failure to convene a special Dewan Rakyat session specifically to table the bill. 

“However we hope that the bill will be tabled, debated and approved in the first week of the Dewan Rakyat sitting, which begins on July 18.” 

The statement was signed by PKR president and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook, Amanah president Mohamad Sabu and Upko president Wilfred Madius Tangau. 

Last week Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said there will be no special Parliament sitting to table the bill and amendments to the Federal Constitution. 

The minister said the prime minister had rejected the proposal to hold the special meeting.

“The prime minister decided there was no need to have a special sitting, because it will incur additional costs to have MPs attend the sitting, which are estimated to be more than RM1 million,” he said. 

PH also said that it will discuss three other matters with Ismail:

• setting a limit of two terms or 10 years for the prime minister;
• the Parliamentary Service Bill;
• amend the Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives.

It said these are the three items left to be discussed in the 18 Items of the memorandum of understanding between PH and the federal government. – June 13, 2022.