05

Backbenchers Must Speak Freely

‘Abiding Times’, theSun, 27 June 2008

IN Cate Blanchett’s Elizabeth, there is a scene relating that the passage of the Act of Uniformity 1559 required locking up several naysayers in a dank dungeon, lest Her Majesty’s Government suffer a humiliating defeat. On Monday, when the two SAPP rebels-to-be didn’t show up at the Dewan Rakyat following their declared resolve to table a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, I imagined them similarly interned in secret catacombs in the hill under parliament.

But the reality was no laughing matter. Apparently, they were issued with various threats and flew home for the sake of their own and their families’ security.

It seems every time a backbencher in this country shows any sign of bravery or overt independence, they are either slapped down by party supremos or otherwise dissuaded. It would be wrong to encourage opposition for its own sake, but its occasional occurrence is nonetheless a reassuring sign that our legislature has truly risen above playground antics.

“It seems every time a backbencher in this country shows any sign of bravery or overt independence, they are either slapped down by party supremos or otherwise dissuaded.”

Earlier this month, 36 British Labour MPs—that’s 10 percent of lawmakers belonging to the government party—rebelled against the British Prime Minister’s proposal to detain terror suspects for 42 days without charge, up from 28 days (I remind you that the ISA allows 730 days). Gordon Brown won the division by a paper-thin nine votes, and was roundly condemned for bribing and manipulating MPs to secure even that. A Conservative shadow minister resigned in protest and is now contesting a by-election solely on the issue of civil liberties. It is inspirational stuff. Some votes in the Commons—particularly on conscience issues like abortion and euthanasia—aren’t whipped at all, but when they are, rebellion is still a common occurrence. Can you imagine when 10 percent of Malaysian lawmakers might vote against their party line?

Minister for Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Datuk Shahrir Samad’s motion on Monday supporting ‘the government’s measures to restructure the oil and gas system’ sailed through the chamber. His joy at the victory might have been tinged with irony, for it was he who got in trouble from the BN whip for supporting an opposition motion as a backbencher in 2006.

A first-world parliament comprises MPs who believe that they serve their constituents above all else, and the party a distant second. I have laboured the point in these pages before but it can’t be stressed enough, particularly since the anti-party hopping lobby continues to chant the mantra that switching sides is necessarily ‘immoral’. I’m sorry, but this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Westminster system we’ve inherited. It is designed such that we emphatically do not vote for the party, but rather, the individual, who is entrusted to make decisions on our behalf until we are given the opportunity to judge him or her at the next election.

The usual response is that Malaysians don’t care about the individual, and do indeed only consider the party. But there’s no solid evidence to back up this claim. After all, there are plenty who stuck with DSAI or Ku Li after they changed sides (and back again, in the case of the latter). Personality politics has its own attendant problems—chiefly, an obfuscation of ideology, as I’ve previously argued—but nonetheless, it remains a democratic right to idolise individuals instead of abiding by ideological principles.

Even if there was such evidence, an anti-hopping law would be a weak and lazy response to the situation. If we really want to move towards a system where the composition of parliament represents the votes obtained by parties, then we should move towards proportional representation. I wonder if the anti-hoppers believe that parties should be able to replace YBs if they don’t toe the party line, but that would be its end result, by removing the most powerful defence a backbencher has against their party leadership.

Here we are, more than 100 days after 8 March, and we’ve seen progress being made in judicial reform, decentralisation of power and empowerment of the media (well done to the BNBBC for lifting the cordon in the parliament lobby on Tuesday). These are vital institutions for the protection of our freedoms—yet there are still those who would desire the independent judgement of some promising backbenchers being overruled by subservience to party diktat.