MOHAMED Nazri Abdul Aziz has suggested that the Federal Constitution should be amended to ensure a period of five years between general elections, thereby creating a fixed term for parliament.

In an interview with Astro Awani, Malaysia’s ambassador to the United States said this would put a stop to any attempts to topple the government as had happened in the past.

The former law minister added that the issue of the government’s stability was frequently raised by US investors and politicians he has met. Nazri said he considered it his duty as an ambassador to help the government convince investors and bring more investments to Malaysia, but the country’s stability is key to attracting foreign investors.

Perhaps it is an opportune time to look at the arguments for and against fixed-term parliaments which Professor Robert Hazell of The Constitution Unit, University College London penned in a report more than a decade ago. (See Robert Hazell, Fixed Term Parliaments, University College London 2010)

The arguments in favour of fixed-term parliament are as follows:

Electoral fairness

The advantage an incumbent government has in calling the election when it chooses has been famously compared by Professor Blackburn to an athlete arriving at the track already in running shoes and being allowed to fire the starting pistol. Blackburn described the unfair advantage as in the following words:

“[A] Prime Minister sets an election date at the time when he thinks he is most likely to win it. Conversely, he will avoid such times as he is likely to lose it. The anachronistic state of the law on electoral timing adversely affects the fairness of the election process as a whole.

“It gives the party in government a tremendous tactical advantage over the opposition parties, and of all the possible flaws to be found in our electoral law and administration, this perhaps above all other matters does most harm to the integrity of the electioneering contest.”

Reduction of prime ministerial power

The power to determine the date of the election is a source of additional power for the prime minister over his colleagues. It enables him to bring into line his ministers and backbenchers. If they threaten to rebel he can in turn threaten them with an early election.

According to Hazell, former prime minister John Major was able to threaten the Maastricht rebels with an early election if they did not fall into line. With a fixed-term parliament, a prime minister could no longer threaten a snap election in this way.

Better electoral administration

An election commission – the administrators of elections – should have an interest in a fixed-term parliament as this would enable the commission to be better prepared because the election date would be known in advance.

Better governmental planning

A fixed-term parliament creates an expectation that parliament will run for the whole term, which could reduce “short termism”. This is particularly important when there is a minority or coalition government, or when the government’s majority is narrow. 

A fixed term should give the government reasonable time to develop and implement their legislative agenda or programme.

Ill-timed measures could also be avoided, such as outlining a budget just before an election, as happened before GE15. The increased certainty will enable greater confidence in the government’s ability to tackle economic issues on a medium-to-long term basis.

Protection of the Crown

By minimising or regulating the discretionary use of prerogative powers, constitutional crises as have occurred in some Commonwealth countries could be avoided. The King Byng affair in Canada in 1926 and the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 are examples that demonstrate the difficulties for the Crown when faced with requests for early dissolution.

As for arguments against a fixed-term Parliament, the following have been bandied about:

Loss of flexibility and reduced accountability

A fixed-term Parliament could prevent a general election from taking place when it may otherwise be seen as appropriate. 

Hazell gave an example: prime minister Anthony Eden (1955-1957) decided to call a premature election in April 1955. This could be justified on a mandate basis: he had only taken over as PM nine days earlier after the resignation of Winston Churchill.

A fixed-term parliament will remove or at least limit the government’s capacity for testing electoral opinion on a major public issue where it might be in the country’s interest to do so.

There is a risk that rigidity could lead to “lame duck” governments, lacking the full confidence of the lower house but not capable of being brought down, as the case in New South Wales, Australia where a deeply unpopular government could be removed.

Ineffective

Experience of fixed-term parliaments in other jurisdictions show that governments have been able to circumvent the fixed-term requirement and call elections according to their convenience. The 2008 election in Canada was an example, when the government ignored its fixed-term legislation, passed only the previous year.

In Germany, chancellors Helmut Kohl in 1982 and Gerhard Schröder in 2005 engineered to lose a vote of confidence in order to dissolve parliament midterm.

The above examples suggest that a government desperate to call an election would find a way, regardless of the safeguards in place.

So, shall we go for a fixed-term parliament? – June 12, 2023.

* Hafiz Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.