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YOURSAY | 'PM buying time with Parliament committee nonsense'

This article is 3 years old

YOURSAY | 'By including the opposition, the PN govt expects to get legitimacy for its delay tactics.'

Govt will involve opposition in hybrid Parliament plans - Muhyiddin

Vijay47: Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, assuming that is your name for this week, your greatest challenge is not your incompetence but the total lack of credibility you exude. Or to put it in words you may understand, nobody trusts or believes in you.

You now plaintively say that the opposition will be included in any bird-brained hybrid meeting your cunning mind can devise.

I mention this serious doubt because you have consistently excluded MPs outside your coterie. I do not need to remind you of your penchant for leaving out the opposition states, even from sessions to discuss a dire national concern that Covid-19 is.

To have inclusive brainstorming does not require the intelligence of a rocket scientist; even meter-readers can do it. And the omission of the unfavoured states was not a one-off accident, for you did it several times.

Why are you so bothered whether a hybrid parliamentary session would coincide with the Standing Orders? Why is this taking so long to decide? Has the determination of this issue been delegated to our masters of speedy conclusions, the Education Ministry?

In any case, it would be trite to say that physical sessions are provided for in the Standing Orders. So, what’s holding up the traffic? Health considerations?

Small problem, just delegate some bazaar site as an interim Parliament. I am sure the House speaker would be glad to oblige.

Open Mind: This must the joke of the year. A committee to study how Parliament can reconvene - what is there to study?

Just set a date for the start of the Parliament session. The MPs are all vaccinated and they can attend, following SOP (standard operating procedure) and social distancing.

If the public can go to the vaccination centres for their vaccination, why can’t the 220 parliamentarians attend Parliament?

This is quite ridiculous. There is absolutely no necessity for any hybrid or whatsoever requirements for Parliament to start.

Similarly, the respective state assemblies are also going to have their sessions. Are they also going to do a study as well on how to conduct their assemblies?

Dr Raman Letchumanan: Why the need for a committee? In any planning process, we decide on a date and work towards it. Not form a committee to come to a conclusion first then decide on a date. The PM has cleverly kicked the ball to the opposition.

We can have the speaker and his professional staff come up with the SOP in accordance with the Constitution and the Standing Orders. The attorney-general can be consulted.

Worse comes to worst, have a physical meeting with reduced numbers and the others on the Zoom application. This is done everywhere.

The state governments are precisely doing this. They have proposed dates, the earliest possible, and are working towards getting all the approvals, including from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as regards meeting during this emergency.

Now, how long will it take to establish the committee? Obviously, there are opposing stands - one as soon as possible in line with the Agong’s advice, and the other stretching up to October, that too with National Recovery Plan conditions.

Certainly, a consensus will not be achieved. What happens then?

Kita Orang Biasa: PM, what happened to the National Recovery Plan parameters that Covid-19 numbers must fall below a daily average of 4,000 before Parliament can convene?

If the yet-to-be-formed committee finds it to be okay to convene Parliament but the numbers stay above the daily average of 4,000, will you delay Parliament sittings?

The daily average, for example, on June 19 was 5,559. To reach below a daily average of 4,000 would mean a sharp daily reduction in cases by 1,500 for the next remaining days in June.

Poppy: No intention to delay Parliament, so they say, but yet PAS through its NGOs are preparing to extend the emergency.

So, who are you kidding, Muhyiddin? Even now with the talk of studying what type of Parliament, you are still playing delaying tactics.

All the MPs are vaccinated together with their secretaries. Even the Parliament officers can be vaccinated or they must have already got their vaccination.

Stop giving excuses as they all don't hold water. It also gives the impression that all the leaders of the world are far more intelligent than you, as their parliaments are open.

Clever Voter: The slow-motion behaviour demonstrated by Muhyiddin shows that clearly, he is in no hurry to call it a day.

The emergency privilege has given him not only easy access but the power to decide unquestioned and without accountability.

Despite his 'minority' government, it is astonishing that he is allowed the authority to spend and determine the use of the resources that are not even his own but the people’s.

The embattled PM is cornered, but it’s not checkmated yet.

FairMalaysian: This looks like a ploy. By including the opposition, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government expects to get legitimacy for its delay tactics.

The nation has turned against the PN government. The saddest thing of all is the price Muhyiddin has to pay.

Unfortunately, he did not learn from the fall from grace of former prime ministers  Najib Abdul Razak and Dr Mahathir Mohamad.


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