Zero improvement by MPs in much awaited Parliament sitting

After the last horrible performance by these actors in December 2020, we had hoped for something better from the MPs in Parliament this time around.

But what a disappointment!

For almost eight months, since the emergency was declared, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) MPs and Umno court cluster MPs, pro-PH lawyers like Ambiga Sreenevasan, and pro-PH activists like Bersih etc were stridently demanding for Parliament to sit.

They demanded transparency, accountability and answers.

They insisted that laws and executive decisions must be scrutinised through Parliament.

Never mind that there was a pandemic, never mind that there was a health and economic crisis, no matter what – the opening of Parliament was touted as the single most important solution to all problems in this country.

And yet, despite all the hype and whipped up frenzy of how great Parliament would be, what did we see? We expected a better standard of parliamentary conduct from the so-called “reformist” PH, but did we see that?

On Day One, PH MPs were screaming and shouting at the top of their lungs, “point of order, point of order”, disrupting every single minister or member of the executive when they tried to speak. It’s okay not to agree with the Perikatan Nasional ministers, but surely they should be allowed to explain.

They breached all commonwealth practices, hurling abuse at the speaker, calling him “lapdog” etc.

They interrupted and heckled a neutral call by the PM to observe a moment of silence for those who perished due to Covid-19.

On Day Two, they came back remorseless, again harping on why they weren’t told of the cancellation of the emergency ordinances. The day before, they all looked confused and stumped when the law minister delivered the happy news that the government will no longer seek to extend the emergency.

Now shouldn’t PH have been happy over this considering that they had been condemning the government for invoking the emergency? No. Instead they cried unfair! Where’s the royal assent, why weren’t we told?

Why are PH MPs suddenly so concerned about all manner of form and technicalities over something they claimed they wanted to get rid of so badly? Surely it’s because with the non-extension of emergency and revocation of ordinances, they lost their biggest issue to hammer the govt over. This isn’t responsible opposition.

On Day Three, the show continued. MPs stood up, spending the whole day disrupting, shouting and screaming and hurling abuses.

And as if we were not sick enough of these antics, some of them insisted that Parliament should extend the time beyond 5.30pm despite the health DG’s advice against it.

Do these people actually think the rakyat appreciate this kind of show? All this talking rudely all at once? It grates upon right-thinking people. Only their hardcore supporters might appreciate it.

Some of them, ever obsessed with their personal popularity, stood up and spoke meanderingly for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately because these people have a large number of followers on social media, their few minutes’ performance was captured for eternity as if they had greatly uplifted the welfare of the public.

So I would like to call out to all these badly behaved MPs, stop hoodwinking the rakyat.

Stop coming back, session after session, without a single lesson learnt and behaving worse than before. If you do not care about the people, you should stop calling yourself “wakil rakyats”.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.