MP SPEAKS | Anti-hopping bill would have prevented Sheraton Move

MP SPEAKS | After many months of delay, the anti-hopping law has finally been presented in Parliament in the form of a number of constitutional amendments.

These amendments include restrictions on the freedom of association for elected representatives (Article 10), not preventing an elected representative who has resigned his or her position the opportunity to stand again in a by-election after such a resignation (Article 49) and putting in conditions by which an elected MP will lose his or her seat if party hopping takes places (Article 49A) and putting these conditions in place in the state constitutions (Eight Schedule).

If these constitutional amendments were in place before February 2020, the Sheraton Move would not have taken place.

First, all Umno MPs who left their party after the 14th general election to join Bersatu would have their seats declared vacant and by-elections would have been held in each of these seats. Of course, knowing that their seats would be automatically vacated if they left Umno to join another party, it is likely that these MPs would not have left Umno.

Similarly, the MPs who left PKR to join Bersatu as part of the Sheraton Move would not have wanted to leave knowing that they would have to face the electorate in a by-election in their respective seats.

The proposed Article 49A would also make vacant a seat if an MP who was elected as an independent candidate were to join a political party.

This means that independents who win their seats in a general election or a by-election would not be able to “sell” themselves to a political party in exchange for positions or other benefits.

There are some conditions under which an MP who changes party will not be forced to vacate his or her seat, namely if (i) his party is deregistered for some reason (ii) he resigns from his party to become the speaker or (iii) he is expelled from his party.

I think these are reasonable conditions. Some have used the example of MPs like Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, who stood his ground for principled reasons against the Sheraton Move and was subsequently sacked from Bersatu, as a good reason for not vacating their seats.

‘Numbers game will be unlikely’

I know that there are some people who say that some recalcitrant MPs may use this clause to create a lot of trouble for themselves within their party such as going against the party whip and voting in support of motions and laws from the other side of the political aisle so that he can be sacked from his party and join another party without having to lose his seat.

But I think such occurrences will be relatively rare, especially in a setting whereby political manoeuvres to change government using a “numbers game” such as the Sheraton Move will be very unlikely.

Of course, there will still be some who say that these amendments do not prevent a party such as Bersatu from leaving one coalition to join another coalition. This is true. But it will be very challenging to pass a constitutional amendment which includes such a possibility.

In reality, if the anti-hopping provisions were already in place prior to GE14, Bersatu would not have had the numbers to bring down the Pakatan Harapan government if it was not able to “attract” some Umno MPs to join its ranked post GE14 and to attract some PKR MPs to join the Sheraton Move.

These anti-hopping constitutional amendments are a game changer for Malaysian politics, not just at the federal level.

It will be very important in states like Sabah where party-hopping has been destabilising state governments since the mid-1990s.

The amendments, if passed, would increase the level of confidence among voters that the candidates they vote for in GE15 would remain in their respective parties after the general election.

Editor's note: The Constitutional (Amendment) (No 3) Bill 2022 is scheduled to be debated by the lower house on July 27.

ONG KIAN MING is Bangi MP.

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