Media statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri, Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on 29 July 2021:

Let the first item of business of Dewan Rakyat on Monday be a test of whether Mahiaddin Yassin still commands the confidence and majority support of Members of Parliament

On Monday evening, I said that the first day of the five-day Parliament special meeting started as a disaster and ended in catastrophe. It has now become a farce on the fourth day as result of the parliamentary lockdown and the repeated adjournments of Parliament yesterday.

The Prime Minister, Mahiaddin Yassin’s Ministerial statement on the National Recovery Plan on Monday was a disaster.

There was no honest attempt to admit that the government, through it blind faith on total lockdowns, had mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic; that the six-month emergency saw the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases increased by nearly eight times from 135,992 cases on January 10  to 1,027,954 cases on July 26  and the Covid-19 deaths increased by nearly fifteen times from 551 deaths to 8,201 deaths; and the National Recovery Plan was an instant failure, as the nation was unable to make the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2 at the end of June as planned.

On the eve or Parliament special meeting, Malaysia set a new daily record for new Covid-19 cases – 17,045 cases – and on the first day of the Parliament special meeting, Malaysia  set a new daily record for new Covid-19 deaths – 207 deaths.

But the greatest disaster was the government’s biggest secret – that  for five days, the Cabinet claimed that it had revoked the six Emergency Ordinances, making Malaysia probably the only country in the world with an Emergency Proclamation without any Emergency Ordinance.

But were the six Emergency Ordinances properly revoked on July 21, 2021 when nobody knew about it; a simple legal question which the Attorney-General Idris Harun should have no difficulty in advising the Yang di Pertuan Agong, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the people of Malaysia.

This was the issue which haunted the four days of the five-day Parliament special meeting, consuming most of the parliamentary time, and not the  Covid-19 pandemic.

In the first four days of the Parliament special meeting, the country was caught in a double whammy, the biggest constitutional crisis a-brewing while the Covid-19 pandemic continued to worsen – setting a new record for daily new Covid-19 cases; breaking the million mark of the eve of Parliament special meeting and setting a new record of achieving  the 11th 100,000 cases six days when we had taken  12 months to reach the first 100,000 Covid-19 cases in Malaysia. On the death-toll front, we took 14 months to reach the first 1,000 deaths, but we will achieve  the ninth 1,000 deaths in five days during the Parliament special meeting.

A perusal of the Istana Negara and the Prime Minister’s Office statements show that the Istana Negara statement was right and the PMO statement wrong.

Furthermore, they also showed that  both the Prime Minister, Mahiaddin Yassin and the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Parliament), Takiyuddin Hassan, had misled Parliament in claiming that the six Emergency Ordinances were revoked on July 21, 2021 and that the Speaker on Parliament, Azhar Azizan Harun was wrong in rejecting the motions of the DAP MP for Bruas, Ngeh Koo Ham, to annul the Emergency Proclamation and Ordinances.

Both Mahiaddin and Takiyuddin should be referred to the Dewan Rakyat Committee of Privileges for misleading Parliament. Azhar should also resign as Speaker as clearly he cannot be the Chairman of the Dewan Rakyat Committee of Privileges.

I agree with the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Anwar Ibrahim that the Parliament lockdown was a ruse for the government to obstruct the Dewan Rakyat sitting yesterday because of the motion of no confidence against Muhyiddin as Prime Minister had been tabled  following the Istana Negara’s reprimand of the Perikatan Nasional government for unconstitutional conduct and this action must be deplored.

All these developments stems from the fact that the Mahiaddin government does not have the majority support of Members of Parliaments and the need to resort to parliamentary “games and tricks” to obviate the parliamentary reality.

Takiyuddin and Mahiaddin should honourably resign.

If the Prime Minister is not prepared to resign, let the first item of parliamentary business of Dewan Rakyat on Monday be a test as to whether Mahiaddin Yassin still commands the confidence and majority support of Members of Parliament.

The German Parliament contributed the Reichstag fire in 1933 to global parliamentary infamy  but let the Malaysian Parliament not contribute to global  parliamentary infamy with a parliamentary Covid-19 lockdown in 2021!