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KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 22): Slowness in the formation of a government after a general election, as Malaysia is experiencing currently, is not something unusual and reflects increasingly fractured political landscapes and weaknesses in the electoral system, say political analysts.
Two days after Malaysia held its 15th general election (GE15) on Saturday (Nov 19), a prime minister has yet to be appointed nor a government formed because no political coalition had managed to secure the simple majority of 112 seats out of the total 222 seats in Parliament.
Dr Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with Singapore’s Institute of International Affairs, said the ongoing horse-trading involving three coalitions — Pakatan Harapan (PH), which won 82 seats; Perikatan Nasioal (PN), which has 73 seats, and Barisan Nasional (BN), with 30 seats — is not an uncommon event.
He said that in other advanced parliamentary democracies, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel and Australia, coalition governments are often formed after prolonged negotiations.
“Coalition governments are just the ‘new normal’ political reality for many countries which cling on to the parliamentary form of government, and also a reflection of increasingly fractured and polarised political landscapes.
“An alternative would be to embrace true division of governmental powers into legislative and executive branches, such as practised in the United States, where the members of these two co-equal branches are elected separately and not beholden electorally to one another,” he added.
Another political observer, Dr Mazlan Ali from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, said Malaysia is experiencing the weakness of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system practised by the country since independence. Under this system, the candidate who wins the most votes in each constituency is elected.
“In addition, the imbalance in the number of voters in one constituency (weightage) is also one of the weaknesses. The ruling party will usually do a lot of manipulation (gerrymandering),” Mazlan told The Edge.
He said the current system is unfair to urban areas. For instance, the Bangi constituency in Selangor has a total of 303,430 voters, while the Lawas constituency in Sarawak has just 33,655 voters.
“What can be improved is the fair weightage between urban and rural areas, creating a more transparent and effective system,” he added.
On the anti-hopping law that came into force just before GE15, Mazlan said while it provides some stability by preventing individual Members of Parliament (MPs) from crossing over to another party from the party under which he or she contested, it does not stop a party from withdrawing from a government by consensus.
Thus, he noted that it is the onus of any intra-coalition government to respect each other and work together to maintain the government for the next five years before the next general election.
Meanwhile, Malaysians should be prepared for possible political instability, even after the government is formed.
“The anti-hopping law is an admirable start to lessening and hopefully eradicating the ‘frogging culture’ in Malaysia, whereby elected representatives hawk their seats often for self-serving interests, instead of switching party allegiance due to genuine ideological differences,” Oh said.
However, he said there are loopholes in the anti-hopping law, one of which is that component parties, as well as their MPs could leave and join other coalitions.
Besides that, Oh said an MP elected under a party could openly announce his or her support for a rival party’s leader as prime minister with impunity.
Another political analyst, however, said this was not necessarily the case.
“By showing that they are supporting another party which is not in line with their party’s decision, they automatically disqualify themselves as a Member of Parliament,” the analyst told The Edge.
However, Amanah and DAP, both under the PH coalition, are the only political parties that have taken action to address this loophole.
They have amend their respective party constitution to ensure that elected representatives would automatically lose their party membership if they went against the party’s direction on decisions on fundamental issues.
On the prospect of Malaysia forming a minority government, whereby the coalition that forms the government does not hold at least a simple majority, Oh said this is possible and has been done during the administration of former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Mazlan, on his part, said a minority government is not suitable for Malaysia.
“I think a unity government is more suitable for [the] Malaysian society. It was done after the May 13 tragedy. Tun Abdul Razak Hussein (the second prime minister of Malaysia) invited all the parties to join the BN government. All Opposition parties joined it, except DAP, between 1970 to 1974,” he said.
When asked whether a government can be formed with the use of statutory declarations (SDs), Mazlan said SD is one of the ways to determine as to which coalition commands majority support when there is a deadlock in electing the prime minister.
“The system in our country is that the people elect their representatives, not the government. The government is formed from the MPs who give their trust to one member from the Dewan Rakyat,” he said.
In response to the same question, Oh said SDs can determine the government “if the King deems so”.
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