LETTER | Muhyiddin should reveal names of 115 MPs backing him

LETTER | Perikatan Nasional (PN) chairperson Muhyiddin Yassin should follow former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad in revealing the names of the 115 MPs he claimed supported him.

Mahathir did that on the night of Feb 29, 2020, even though the king decreed that Muhyiddin will be appointed as the PM and the swearing-in was on the next day.

On that day, the king made an official announcement at 4.40pm that Muhyiddin would be the 8th prime minister, to be sworn in on the following day.

At that point, it was uncertain how Muhyiddin and his party were able to obtain the necessary number of MPs to form the government.

GPS of Sarawak had not yet given any indication of where its support would lean at the time of the announcement.

At 6pm, a video circulating on WhatsApp showed that Muhyiddin thanked GPS, amongst others, for its support.

At 8.36pm, GPS officially said that it would support Muhyiddin as prime minister but clarified that while it supported PN, it was not one of its member component parties.

At close to 11pm, Mahathir issued a statement containing the full list of MPs who were in support of Mahathir as premier.

From an initial list of 114 MPs supporting him, after some denials and omissions in between, the final list included names and details of 113 MPs, one more than needed to form the government.

Earlier, at 10.30am on Feb 27, 2020, PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man announced that all Umno and PAS MPs had signed statutory declarations for Muhyiddin as prime minister.

This, however, was later refuted by PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan, saying that the report that PAS MPs have signed a statutory declaration was untrue.

When Muhyiddin was sworn in as premier at Istana Negara at 10.30am on March 1, 2020, Pakatan Harapan maintained that it had 112 MPs, with their names revealed publicly.

Here, Muhyiddin’s claim to command the confidence of the majority was immediately contradicted in fact by the statutory declarations signed by 112 MPs.

The newly appointed prime minister came into power with neither an electoral nor parliamentary mandate and his appointment rested on the challenged ground that he did indeed command the confidence of the majority.

Thus, Muhyiddin’s appointment was immediately met with calls for a vote of no confidence at the next parliamentary sitting.

In response, the newly appointed prime minister postponed the start of the parliamentary session from March 9 to May 18, 2020.

In stark contrast to the 2020 change of government which was not brought about by an electoral outcome but was triggered by political defectors and marked by a battle among political elites followed by unprecedented royal intervention, the present case is a result of an electoral outcome on Nov 19.

Still clinging to his claims that he has 115 MPs supporting him with statutory declarations, Muhyiddin is now asking Harapan’s Anwar Ibrahim to show his numbers.

Instead of asking Anwar, Muhyiddin should reveal and show the 115 statutory declarations from MPs as proof that he has their support to be the PM.

Why is Muhyiddin not doing that but instead asking Anwar to reveal his numbers?

Muhyiddin ignored the calls for him to prove he has the necessary numbers of MPs supporting him in February 2020 in Parliament by postponing the sitting for two months from its original scheduled date.

Anwar can also do the same if he wished but unlike Muhyiddin, Anwar has publicly announced in his first press conference that the first order of business for his government when Parliament convenes would be to face a confidence motion in Parliament to prove that he has the numbers needed to form a government.

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