ADUN SPEAKS | Muhyiddin hardly qualified to talk about MOA legitimacy

ADUN SPEAKS | Bersatu president and former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin should be the last person commenting on the recent memorandum of agreement (MOA) between political coalitions and to a lesser extent political parties in pledging support for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

The coming together of political coalitions and political parties seems to new development in the arena of Malaysian politics.

The MOA has given an assurance to Anwar that he would sail through comfortably when his majority is tested in the Parliament tomorrow.

It is not that the MOA is perfect, but it is certainly superior to the statutory declarations (SDs) that were used by Muhyiddin and others to orchestrate the infamous diabolical Sheraton Move that brought down the legitimately elected government of Pakatan Harapan.

Muhyiddin without shame talks about the unconstitutionality of the MOA, forgetting about how he used the SDs, real or not, to manipulate things in his favour.

After the recent general election, he tried his infamous way by using dubious SDs to become the prime minister.

Fortunately, he did not succeed.

His manipulations were too well known to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

On the advice of the Agong, the formation of the unity government with Anwar as the prime minister was the answer to Perikatan Nasional’s greed and manipulation.

MOA not perfect agreement

The MOA is not a perfect agreement. It might go wrong or it could even be challenged in a court of law.

It is not meant to usurp the parliamentary powers of the MPs. There is no return to dictatorship as claimed by some PN leaders.

The fact that PN could not even put up such cooperation tells much about the myopic politics of PN and the broad politics of the unity government.

The historical coming together of coalitions might bring forth politics that will be focussed on political stability and economic development.

Credit must be given to Anwar and the other coalition leaders for sinking their differences to embrace the national agenda that is so central to the unity government.

What is so unconstitutional about the MOA remains to be seen.

It is not that the agreement that forbids party hopping cannot be challenged in court.

There is no attempt to muzzle the freedom of thought and expression of the MPs.

It is precisely to prevent insidious and illegal attempts to thwart the legitimate government that explains the genesis of the MOA.

P RAMASAMY is the Perai assemblyperson and Penang deputy chief minister II.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.