A year of hits and misses
Pakatan’s time in the house so far has been fraught with achievements and challenges in its attempt to fulfil its election promise of doing away with draconian laws.
PAKATAN Harapan Members of Parliament now occupy the government benches in Dewan Rakyat, displacing Barisan Nasional which had ruled Malaysia for 61 years.
And for this new government, there have been several firsts.
It was the first time a former prime minister returned to the House as its leader, albeit under a different political banner when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister.
It was also the first time that a former prime minister returned to the House as an ordinary lawmaker when Datuk Seri Najib Razak took his oath as Pekan MP.
Pakatan’s first year in the House has also been fraught with both hits and misses in its attempt to do away with draconian laws as promised in its election manifesto.
Among the notable achievements was on Aug 8 last year when the government passed the Goods and Services Tax (Repeal) Bill and four related Bills to reintroduce the Sales and Services Tax (SST), as well as abolish the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on Sept 1.
However, Pakatan ran into a roadblock in trying to do away with the Anti-Fake News Act 2018.
Although the Bill was passed by the Dewan Rakyat, the senators rejected it when put to vote in Dewan Negara on Sept 12. The law is still considered in force.
There was cheer among university students when the Universities and University Colleges Act and two other related education laws were amended by Pakatan.
The amendments threw out the ban on students getting involved with politics while on campus.
In the transportation sectors, the government decommissioned the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) and introduced laws to govern the highly unregulated e-hailing services.
SPAD and e-hailing were issues which the new administration had raised during its election campaign.
Meanwhile, the amendments of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act drew an intense response.
The Bill was supposed to have dealt once and for all with the contentious issue of unilateral conversion of a child to Islam by a converted spouse. The previous administration tried to deal with the controversial issue by including Clause 88A against unilateral conversion, but later withdrew the Bill in August 2017.
Clause 88A stated that the religion of a child shall remain as the religion of the parents during the marriage prior to conversion by a spouse.
Many parties were disappointed when Pakatan also chose to leave out Clause 88A in its Bill to amend the law.
However, the government amended the law to ensure that civil marriages must be dissolved in the civil courts even if one spouse has converted to Islam.
One of the biggest blows to Pakatan came when the effort to restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak as equal partners under the Malaysian Agreement 1963 was rejected in Dewan Rakyat.
The government was confident of securing a two-thirds majority of 148 votes out of 222 in the House to amend the constitution for the purpose.
However, its move was defeated when they got only 138 votes. Interestingly enough, 59 lawmakers abstained from voting.
There were also other off-the-cuff firsts in the Dewan Rakyat during debates.
Among them was outspoken Kinabatangan MP Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin, who was asked by Speaker Datuk Mohd Ariff Md Yusof to apologise for using the “F” word against Puncak Borneo MP Willie Mongin during a heated debate.
Lawmakers were also caught off guard and left tickled when Dr Mahathir interjected to jibe Pontian MP Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan during debates on the Felda White Paper.
It was the first time that a prime minister had stood up to interject during debates.
Ahmad claimed that Felda had always been profitable and only suffered losses after Pakatan took over the government.
He went on to present about 10 points to further improve and revive Felda, including bringing industries into Felda areas to avoid settlers from moving out.
A bemused Dr Mahathir stood up and calmly intervened.
“As the lawmaker for Langkawi, I am amazed by the fairy tales being presented.
“What I am puzzled about is why he (Ahmad) didn’t tell all of this to his former ‘bossku’ (a term coined by followers to describe Najib) so that we would not have problems and there would not be any White Paper on the matter. Everything would be clean.
“However, these penyangak-penyangak (crooks) have left their mark and that is what we are left with to clean up,” Dr Mahathir had said.
Pakatan also did some springcleaning
One of the biggest blows to Pakatan came when the effort to restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak as equal partners under the Malaysian Agreement 1963 was rejected in Dewan Rakyat.
for the House, including the setting up of select committees in line with its manifesto to implement parliamentary reforms.
The committees are for Consideration of Bills, Budget, Defence and Home Affairs, Rights and Gender Equality, States and Federal Relations and Major Public Appointments.
Also set up was the Caucus of Reforms and Governance headed by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who had previously said that reforms would be his main focus prior to taking over as prime minister.
Mohamad Ariff, in an interview with The Star, said there was also a plan to set up a total of 11 to 15 select committee with priority on the environment and climate change, international trade and foreign affairs, as well as human rights and constitutional affairs.
However, it was the tenure of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee chairman Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee that drew flak in and outside the House.
Kiandee was the first opposition MP to head the committee in line with one of Pakatan’s election pledges.
But Kiandee crossed over to Pakatan on March 15, resulting in calls for his removal.
He has since been replaced by Parit Sulong MP Datuk Dr Noraini Ahmad, who is Umno Wanita chief.