KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 23 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia will propose limiting the prime minister’s post to two terms if they form government, pro-tem vice president Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir said.
News portal Malaysiakini reported him as saying that many countries practise such a limit and believed it is a sufficient duration for a person to hold the post.
“Insya’allah if we succeed with the permission of Allah and the support of you all, if we can set up government after the 14th general election, we will suggest that the duration of the prime minister be limited to two terms and not exceeding 10 years,” he was quoted as saying at an event in Shah Alam last night.
“That is enough, many countries practise this.”
He added that although his father Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the pro-tem chairman of Pribumi, was the country’s longest serving prime minister who held the post for 22 years, it was time to move on because of the current Barisan Nasional (BN) government.
Pakatan Harapan, similarly, has yet to adopt such a practice in the states that it is governing.
In the Penang state assembly earlier this year, the Speaker rejected for the third time DAP assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu’s motion to limit the tenure of the Penang chief minister to two consecutive terms.
At the “Malaysia Bersatu bersama Mukhriz” event last night, Mukhriz received new membership registrations from a group of 110 Selangor Umno grassroots members who had resigned from their party to join Pribumi.
“Tonight is only the first wave, and it will be followed by subsequent waves (of departure),” Malaysiakini quoted Mukhriz saying in a separate report.
“I will encourage more Umno members to join Bersatu.”
According to the report, the group was led by Kota Raja Umno branch deputy chief Mohd Hamidi Abu Bakar, consisting of members from Serdang, Kapar and Kota Damansara.
