‘Votes of four absent PH lawmakers would not have changed outcome of Bill’

KUCHING: Pakatan Harapan ( PH) Sarawak said that even if the four PH absent lawmakers voted for the bill to amend Article 1 (2) of the Federal Constitution on April 9, the total number of MPs voting for the bill would still not be enough to meet the two-thirds requirement to get it passed in Parliament.

This was pointed out by its Information chief Vernon Kedit in responding to the contention that these four ‘missing’ MPs from PH were to be blamed for the rejection of the Bill.

“This is not correct. Even if the four were present and voted in favour, there would only be 142 votes for the Bill. A further six votes would still be required to achieve two-thirds majority. This is simple arithmetic.” he said in a press statement yesterday.

“There are 222 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, or Lower House of the Malaysian Parliament. Currently, only 221 seats are occupied, and Sandakan became vacant when its representative passed away recently,” he pointed out.

To amend the Constitution, twothirds of the Lower House must agree and two-thirds of 221 MPs is 148 , he pointed out.

On April 9, only 197 of the 221 MPs were present in the Lower House while 24 other MPs were absent. A total of 138 MPs voted for the amendment to the Constitution while 59 abstained.

“Of the 138 that voted for the Bill, 115 were MPs from PH. The rest were independents and other MPs from Sabah. Of the 59 that abstained, 19 were from GPS. The rest were from Umno and PAS,” he said.

“Of the 24 missing MPs, four were from PH. One minister, one deputy minister and two backbenchers. The rest were from Umno and PAS,” he added.

“Instead of supporting a Bill that would have empowered Sarawak and returned us to the status before 1976, GPS apparently sided with Umno and PAS by abstaining.

“Had the 19 GPS MPs voted for the Bill on the night of April 9, Sarawak would have ceased to be the 13th state in Malaysia but an equal partner,” Vernon claimed.

Talking to a national news portal in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong said the four PH parliamentarians are Education Minister Maszlee Malik, Deputy Local Industries Minister Datuk Seri Shamsul Iskandar, Kangar MP Noor Amin Ahmad and Sungai Besar MP Muslimim Yahya.

Liew said the four federal PH government MPs were among the 24 absent on April 9.