By S. Arutchelvan

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia--Perhaps the sanity of the House will be better off if we have a speaker which will be received and respected by both the blocks in Parliament. In that sense, if the parties are unable to have a Unity Government, perhaps they can start having a speaker which can be received and fair to both blocks which are almost equal in numbers of strength in parliament. So before we actually talk about a vote of confidence for the Prime Minister, we need to have a vote of confidence of the speaker first. Only then can the speaker act in a fair manner to proceed with the delicate issues like a vote of confidence.

This is simply because we have an AG advising the speaker of the house and both of them are blood brothers.  AG Idrus Harun's position that a vote of confidence in Parliament is not necessary as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had already appointed Ismail Sabri Yaakob as Prime Minister is totally appalling.  What is the AG actually worried about? Since his appointment is from the so-called previous Prime Minister, he should have actually resigned and allowed the new Prime Minister to appoint a new AG.

It seems that the AG has no desire to resign and his recent statement actually seems to indicate that he has no confidence that the new PM will not get his simple majority. It is also problematic when his own brother is the speaker of the House. So where is the check and balance?

If a vote of confidence is not held, it would actually indicate the new PM has no support of the MPs and his majority in SDs are just paper support and not real support. This will make the PM's next journey to govern the Government until the next election will be tainted with ridicules and trolls. So let’s state the new Parliament session with a clean state.