Malaysia’s Members of Parliament are finding that truancy will not be tolerated in the Dewan Rakyat (lower house), after a sparsely attended second week of sessions sparked the ire of Prime Minister Mahathir.
One day after he expressed disbelief and bemusement over the lack of sitting MPs during proceedings, the Dewan Rakyat was forced to halt their session after not enough elected officials showed up to carry on.
Parliamentary rules state that there must be at least 26 MPs present in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat for sessions to be held.
MPs were forced to stand down, at the request of newly appointed Speaker Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof, until more shuffled in.
When the House resumed sessions again at 2:30pm, concerned MP Datuk Alexander Nanta Linggi, who initially pointed out there were less than the required 26 MPs present to hold session, also highlighted that there were no ministers nor deputy ministers present.
Again, the Speaker halted proceedings, and rang the Parliament bell for two minutes, alerting MPs to enter the Dewan, presumably so they could get on with it.
Umno MP Tan Sri Annuar Musa uploaded several photos to his public Facebook account, showing the Dewan Rakyat was all but nearly empty.
Some MPs have pointed out that their absence was due to attending the funeral of the recently deceased assemblyman Eddie Ng, who tragically passed away in a car accident last Friday.
However, it should also be mentioned that funerals notwithstanding, the general attendance of Cabinet members and their deputies has been poor enough to garner a public statement from Prime Minister Mahathir, who asked that they either improve their attendance or provide valid reasons as to why they cannot be there.
Opposition members have also been keen to highlight the rampant truancy running through the sitting government’s upper echelons, with outspoken Rembau representative, and former Youth Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin wondering how not a single Cabinet Minister was present to hear the opposition leader’s speech last week.
Might have something to do with a little payback for that widespread walkout last week, KJ. Call it petty, call it coincidence — but we’re calling it as we see it.
All these MIA MPs have resulted in some novel proposals of keeping track of attendance, including demerit points for absences without valid reasons, while former minister Tan Sri Rais Yatim has suggested that “lazy” MPs be named in newspapers and social media.
Cold, but we imagine it would be effective.
