Yesterday, I called on MCA, Gerakan and MIC Ministers to stop making confusing, contradictory and misleading statements on PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill motion to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act (Act 355) and to take a clear-cut and unequivocal stand firstly, that they oppose any government priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill motion for it to be debated and voted in the present meeting of Parliament; and secondly, they oppose any Federal government take-over of Hadi’s bill after the passage of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.
All that the MCA Deputy President and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong could say was to make the ridiculous and baseless allegation that I was using “dirty tactics” to trap MCA and the other BN component parties.
I do not know whether to express sympathy or commiseration with the MCA Deputy President that the MCA and non-UMNO Ministers who feel and are behaving like mouse caught in a mousetrap of their own making, especially when they dare not even blame the UMNO leadership for putting them in such an unenviable plight.
MCA leaders like Wee can only blame themselves if they feel “trapped” on Hadi’s private member’s bill motion, all because of their lack of political principles.
MCA, Gerakan, MIC and all the other 15 non-UMNO Ministers should force the issue at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow that there is no consensus for the government to give priority to Hadi’s private member’s bill or for government takeover of Hadi’s private member’s bill, and make it very clear that there is no way that Hadi’s private member’s bill motion would be debated and voted on in the present session of Parliament.
As recently as last weekend during the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s visit to Sabah, Najib boasted that the Barisan Nasional had achieved consensus among its 13 components.
It was during his visit to Sabah last weekend where Najib made the baseless and ludicrous allegation that Tun Mahathir’s co-operation with me to Save Malaysia from kleptocracy is an “Ali-Baba” arrangement, forgetting that the biggest “Ali Baba” partnership in Malaysia’s 60 year history is the “Najib-Jho Low” axis which has catapulted the country to a global kleptocracy with the largest international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal with criminal prosecutions and investigations in over a dozen foreign countries except in Malaysia.
But that is a subject for another occasion.
I want to ask MCA, Gerakan, MIC and all the other non-UMNO Ministers whether there is consensus in the Cabinet for the government to give priority in Parliament for Hadi’s private members’ bill motion to be debated and voted on in the current meeting of Parliament, and furthermore, whether there is Cabinet consensus for the UMNO/BN Federal Government to take over Hadi’s private member’s bill after Parliament had adopted Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.
If the answers are clear-cut “No Consensus” in both cases, why the MCA, Gerakan. MIC and all other 15 non-UMNO Ministers dare not say so, loud and clear and tell Najib and the UMNO Ministers that there is no Cabinet consensus for both cases and there is no way for Hadi’s private member’s bill to surface in Parliament?
Or have Barisan Nasional consensus finally been replaced by “UMNO hegemony” both in the cabinet and the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council, where what the other 12 non-UMNO BN parties and their leaders say, want and desire just do not matter, as all the other parties have just to kowtow to the wishes and desires of “UMNO hegemony”?
If this is the new situation in BN, then let it be spelt out clearly and specifically – instead of allowing the “fig leaf” of Barisan Nasional consensus to hide the reality of “UMNO hegemony”!
This is why I am asking the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and all the other fifteen non-UMNO Ministers out of the 35-strong Najib Cabinet to submit to Najib their resignation from the Cabinet and their resignation to take effect the moment Hadi’s private member’s bill motion is given government priority and comes up in Parliament for debate and vote.
This is the least that the Ministers from the MCA, Gerakan, MIC and Sabah/Sarawak BN parties can do to show that they are men and women of principle, and not in politics just for position, money and power.
In the 13th General Election, Barisan Nasional won 133 parliamentary seats – UMNO 88 and the other BN parties collectively a total of 45. UMNO is left with 86 MPs with the departures of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal.
If the 15 non-UMNO Ministers resign from Najib Cabinet, and the 45 MPs from the non-UMNO parties in BN withdraw their support from Najib, then the Najib premiership falls precipitating a political and constitutional crisis as the Najib government will have lost the majority support of the 222 MPs in Parliament.
A new Prime Minister and a new government will have to be formed – let us see whether it is possible to have a new Prime Minister and a new government which is committed to support Hadi’s private member’s bill – as I believe not all the 86 UMNO MPs are prepared to vote in support of Hadi’s private member’s bill motion as the Deputy Home Minister has publicly stated his opposition.
(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Thursday, 9th March 2017 at 12.15 pm)