PETALING JAYA: Perikatan Nasional leaders insist that changing governments is not unlawful as Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim continues to challenge them to prove that they have enough support to unseat him as Prime Minister.
They also insist that the Opposition coalition is not behind the latest conspiracy, and stress instead that it is Anwar who is playing up the rumours.
PAS deputy president Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said the party was currently focused on mid-year state elections.
“If there is a change, it will still be within the framework allowed by the law,” he said yesterday.
PAS and Bersatu are part of the Opposition Perikatan coalition and currently hold 74 seats in the Dewan Rakyat.
“I see the issue of government change being discussed when the Prime Minister himself raises this issue,” said Tuan Ibrahim, who is also Kubang Kerian MP.
On May 1, Anwar reportedly said he was aware of a plot to topple the government but described those behind it as “daydreamers”.
A few days later, Anwar then challenged the Opposition to test their support for a change in government in Parliament.
PAS information chief Khairil Nizam Khirudin said Anwar himself should be familiar with such plots given that the latter attempted at least two of them when he was Opposition leader.
He said Anwar had tried to unseat the Barisan Nasional government in September 2008 and the Perikatan-Barisan administration in September 2020.
Khairil Nizam, who is also Jerantut MP, added that the stability of the incumbent government rests in the Prime Minister’s hands.
“This is a matter of the Prime Minister not being good at taking care of his own household (jaga rumah tangga), this has nothing to do with Perikatan.”
Another Perikatan leader, Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal, echoed his colleagues’ view that it was not unlawful to change the government.
“Democracy allows for a change of government in the Federal Constitution. A government that cannot be reprimanded and cannot be changed is a dictatorship,” said Wan Ahmad Fayhsal, who is also Bersatu Youth (Armada) chief.According to Law Minister Azalina Othman Said, the anti-party hopping law states that an MP will lose his seat if he ceases to be a member of a political party.
She previously said parties would have enacted rules where MPs who violate their party’s decision on which coalition to support would automatically be stripped of their membership.
