KUALA LUMPUR, March 29 ― The entire federal Opposition bloc staged a walkout of the Dewan Rakyat today after the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition called for a bloc vote on goods and services tax (GST) exemptions.

The Opposition boycott resulted in the BN winning the vote by 101-0 in passing a statute paper on GST exemptions.

The Opposition, led by DAP’s Seremban MP Anthony Loke, decided to walk out en masse and boycott the BN bloc vote after failing their bid to call for a surprise bloc vote during the Finance Ministry motion.

But Deputy Speaker Datuk Ronald Kiandee ruled that bloc voting would only be allowed after the lunch break.

This caused Loke to ask the Opposition MPs to boycott the voting, claiming it was a "misuse of the block voting process”.

Following the lunch break, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi called for a bloc vote although the Opposition no longer wanted to pursue the matter.

The lunch break allowed BN MPs who had exited the House to regroup as the Opposition MPs had hoped to surprise the ruling coalition on with their call for a bloc vote earlier.

"We wanted to teach the BN MPs a lesson not to skip Parliament, because a lot of chairs were empty at the time,” DAP’s Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chieng Jien said during a press conference later.

BN MPs in the House later called the Opposition representatives "cowards” for boycotting the bloc vote.