KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 — The political truce signed between the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Opposition coalition and the Ismail Sabri administration last year is still intact, according to DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke.
Loke who is also Seremban MP was responding to several Barisan Nasional (BN) politicians who yesterday declared the peace deal over after the Opposition bloc defeated the government’s bid to extend a controversial clause in the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) 2012 for detention without trial.
He said that several BN MPs, including Umno’s Ketereh MP Tan Sri Annuar Musa, only partially read Article 3.3b of the MoU.
“Article 3.3b indicated that only when a Bill has been discussed with us beforehand, in this context the motion yesterday was not discussed with us prior to it being brought to Parliament.
“The Act is still in effect, the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) 2012 was not repealed, it’s still here.
“We only objected to the motion to extend Sub-section 4(5) of the Sosma Act,” Loke said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Several BN MPs demanded Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob review the government’s stand on the MoU after the Opposition bloc objected to the motion brought by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin to extend Sub-section 4(5), which is 28-days detention period, for another five years starting July 17, 2022.
The Opposition MPs won during a bloc vote by a thin margin with 86 saying no to extend against 85 from the government.
Explaining further, Loke said what Annuar did not mention about Article 3.3(b) was the part that reads: “...after the Bill drafting process was earlier negotiated and agreed upon together”.
Article 3.3 (b) stipulates that subject to the fulfillment and implementation of the MoU, Pakatan Harapan is to stand in support of or take a neutral stance in the approval of any government proposal or other Bills, whereby failure to do so would be viewed as a form of mistrust or distrust of the government, after the Bill drafting process was earlier negotiated and agreed upon together.
“But does it mean that the Sosma motion was rejected and caused YB Bera’s (Ismail Sabri) loss of confidence? The answer is no.
“Our obligation is to approve Budget 2022, which we did, and we did not call for bloc voting throughout last year’s debate.
“If anyone disputes this or there is a question regarding Bera losing confidence, bring a motion of confidence, we will be neutral and the motion will be approved. So the question of motion of confidence does not arise at all,” Loke said.
He added that the motion was rejected also because MPs were absent from the government bloc.
“In fact, I did not expect the government to fail the motion proposal because the government has not lost its majority.
“The government has 114 or 115 MPs, only 84 were present on the government side, we (Opposition bloc) 86. There are 30 who were not present.
“So those who are the people who caused the failure of the motion. Don’t blame us.
“Those 30 people were the ones who caused the motion to fail. The 30 MPs from the government bloc who were not present. It included Pekan (Datuk Seri Najib Razak), Bagan Datuk (Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi), Pontian (Datuk Ahmad Maslan) and so on.
“Those present whom I saw were Padang Rengas (Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz) who defended the government (and also) Jempol,” Loke said.
Loke added that the failure of the motion yesterday was a win for Parliament, proving that checks and balances do exist in the system.
Yesterday, after the motion failed, Annuar reportedly said PH voting against an extension of the Sosma in the Dewan Rakyat was a contravention of the MoU between the government and the Opposition.
According to Annuar, PH has violated Article 3.3 (b) of the MoU, which he claimed requires the Opposition to support any motion brought forward by the government.
However, Article 9.1 of MoU also states that the Opposition is not barred from fulfilling its check-and-balance role.
