PROPONENTS of fixed-term Parliament are confident that an election date known by everyone in this country would eliminate the guessing game and provide much needed stability.  

If that convention is established, the prime minister would effectively lose his power to advise the monarch to seek an early dissolution for a snap election to be held.  

However, the perceived advantage of deciding the date of dissolution that a prime minister would gain is very much exaggerated in the Malaysian context.  

In fact, with politics in this country evolving towards a multi-party system, there is likelihood of a post-election alliance.  

The power to seek an early dissolution is sometimes more desirable and represents the most democratic way for the public to respond to the vicissitudes of multi-party politics.  

In Malaysia, the average length between general elections since independence is around three to four years.  

The interval between the 2004 landslide and the tsunami of 2008 is the shortest, where Abdullah Badawi decided to go to the polls for a second time in three years and 11 months.  

Therefore, there is no precedent that parliament in Malaysia must sit out the full term and in the three most recent elections that I observed (2008, 2013, 2018), it was widely believed that the public were more inclined to want an earlier election rather than parliament serving its full term.  

Neither is there any credible evidence to suggest that the prime minister automatically enjoys an unfair advantage because of his control over the electoral calendar.  

Najib Razak had recently revealed that he had backed down from dissolving parliament right after the 2017 SEA games because of pressure from “various parties”.  

Similarly, with hindsight, Abdullah Badawi would rather have dissolved parliament at a much earlier date to pre-empt the Hindraf and Bersih rallies in 2007. If there was any inherent advantage, it certainly did not materialise or did not benefit BN’s two most recent prime ministers.  

This is because while the prime minister has the power to choose the date of the dissolution, that does not mean the power could not be restrained nor exercised liberally.  

For all the “advantage” that the prime minister seemingly enjoys on deciding the date of dissolution, he could still be swayed by his party’s sentiment, dissuaded by his advisors, or have his desires tempered by his cabinet colleagues or the public mood before letting the country go to the polls.  

Instead, the removal of the prime minister’s power to seek a dissolution could potentially be undemocratic under the current political climate.  

The development of the multi-party system in Malaysia has rendered a hung parliament more likely than before.  

And if that is the case, early dissolution should be made easier and frequent to counterbalance the sudden change of prime minister or coalition partners like what happened during the Sheraton Move.  

If a fixed term parliament is in place, the public would effectively have no political recourse but to wait till parliament finished its full term while political parties were effectively given free rein to negotiate deals behind closed doors.  

Even though early dissolution in 2020 led to Warisan being defeated in the Sabah state polls, Shafie Apdal is certainly not wrong in returning the mandate to Sabahans.  

If the betrayal of Bersatu and Muhyiddin did occur in a world without Covid-19, the ideal solution to the 2020 political crisis would be an early dissolution sought by Mahathir Mohammad where the electorates were given the chance to decide on this seismic political change.  

However, Covid-19 did eliminate any prospect of a 2020 general election. If the parliament term was indeed fixed and early dissolution was made more difficult, Malaysians could be deprived of their rights to choose a government after the fallout of 2020 even if the threat of a pandemic did not exist. 

While no Malaysian would enjoy sudden dissolutions that would lead to frequent elections, the reality is the multi-party system that stemmed from the recent burgeoning of Malay parties has rendered such circumstances impossible to avoid.  

If the next general election produces a hung parliament where the outcome is a political cooperation between BN and PH, whoever the prime minister is at that time should have the power to seek an early dissolution to ensure the political manoeuvring is at the very least democratically legitimate.  

Repetitive elections might be cumbersome; therefore, it remains the best safeguard to ensure governments remain accountable.  

It is indeed convenient to advocate for the government to serve a full term especially when the current prime minister serves your agenda or governs in a fashion that you want; but in the world of multi-party systems and coalition governments, dissolution might be the most effective democratic tool that voters have to prevent more manoeuvring behind closed doors like what we witnessed in the Sheraton Move. - September 4, 2022.  

* 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”.

* 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.