Analyst: Focus more on strengthening country’s parliamentary, election process instead of fixed-term govt

KUCHING (Jan 15): The government should conduct a comprehensive study on the proposal of a bill to fix a default date for general elections, said Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow.

The Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia’s Faculty of Syariah and Law associate professor said the government should learn the lesson from the Fixed Term Parliaments Act (FTPA) 2011, which was legislated in the United Kingdom.

According to him, the FTPA remained in force until 2022 when it was repealed.

“We need to study closely why this particular Act was later repealed in the UK. It could take a few years before the above proposed bill can be considered in our country,” he said in a statement today.

Muzaffar opined that the government needed to set up a special committee comprising experts including academicians, lawyers, judges and relevant non-government organisations (NGOs) to deliberate on the matter.

“In theory, the bill is aimed at maintaining an elected government until the end of its term to help ensure long-term stability in the country’s administration.

“With political stability, the government can then give its full focus to improve the country’s economy and development,” he said.

He, however, cautioned that the proposed bill, if passed, may lead to over-confidence on the part of the existing elected government, which may become less committed to perform since it could last until the end of its term of office.

“There is also a concern that the existing elected government might become arrogant and less empathetic in performing its duties and responsibility to the people,” he said.

He also pointed out that the Federal Constitution allowed the formation of the government as long as the government received simple majority among the MPs.

“In simple words, the Federal Constitution protects and allows democratic process to take place in the formation of the government at all times. If we have a bill aimed at maintaining an elected government, this might go against the existing democratic spirit of the Federal Constitution,” he said.

Instead of finding ways to retain the elected government of the day, Muzaffar said the government should focus more on strengthening the country’s parliamentary and election process.

He said the government should instead legislate a bill to limit the term of service of the prime minister and the elected representatives at the Parliament and State Assemblies to at least two terms.

“This should prevent seeing politicians in power for a very long time while paving way for new faces to contest in elections and be sworn in as our elected representatives and leaders,” he added.

He asserted that Malaysia needed young and new faces who can come up with new ideas for the country’s progress and development.

Given this, he said it is time for Malaysia to take a drastic step for drastic changes to the current political and administrative status quo by having a term limit of service for the prime minister post and the elected representatives at both federal and state levels.