Muhyiddin reminded of his oath to defend the Constitution
Remember your oath to defend the Constitution? Time to seek audience with Agong, PKR MP tells Muhyiddin after losing majority support
(MMO) – Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is obliged to seek an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to inform the Ruler that he no longer commands the majority in the Dewan Rakyat, PKR lawmaker Hassan Karim said today.
The Pasir Gudang MP said now that Umno’s Machang MP Datuk Seri Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub has withdrawn his support from the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government, Muhyiddin only has 110 parliamentarians on his side.
“When Ahmad Jazlan no longer supports Muhyiddin and the PN government, this means that the prime minister’s support in Dewan Rakyat is left with 110 MPs.
“In this situation, the prime minister has lost the majority support in the Dewan Rakyat and the PN government has fallen,” said Hassan in a statement.
Hassan noted that there were only 220 MPs in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat and Muhyiddin has exactly half of that, not the majority.
The Opposition MP also noted that two seats, Batu Sapi and Gerik, are currently vacant due to the deaths of their incumbents from Parti Warisan Sabah and Umno respectively.
Hassan said the Yang di-Pertuan Agong appointed Muhyiddin on March 1, 2020 as the prime minister, under Article 43 (2)(a) of the Federal Constitution as he believed the Pagoh MP had the support of the majority in Parliament.
“Throughout the 10 months Muhyiddin was prime minister of the PN government, he has avoided and denied that motion of no confidence moved against him, and disallowed the motion to be tabled.
“The closest incident that could be interpreted as a motion of confidence towards Muhyiddin was when the Budget 2021 was tabled in Parliament.
“The highest vote count achieved by PN was on December 15, during the voting process of the Budget 2021 at its Third Reading where PN garnered 111 votes while the Opposition bloc got 108,” Hassan said.
He pointed out that the 111 votes included Ahmad Jazlan’s, who has since withdrawn his support for the government.
“In this situation, I think it’s best we refer to Article 43 (4) of the Federal Constitution, which says when the prime minister no longer has the majority support, he has to resign from his position in the Cabinet, unless at the prime minister’s request the King dissolves the Parliament,” Hassan said.
He added that the Federal Constitution provision is very clear and urged Muhyiddin to uphold the law.
“The Pagoh MP, he took an oath when he was sworn in as prime minister, to defend the Federal Constitution.
“This is the time to prove the oath taken,” Hassan said.
