Staging a walk out is a mockery to democracy

The Malaysian Parliament became disorderly and pandemonium broke loose for a while when the motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister’s leadership was brought up by the opposition leader, Dato’ Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. She represented the Pakatan Rakyat . Her motion was not considered by the Dewan Rakyat Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia..

Even though the Speaker is empowered to dismiss any motion based on his his discreation , the Speaker took some time to explain to the members of parliament the reasons for his decision to dismiss the motion.

According to the Speaker, the motion was put forward for the speaker’s deliberation and make decision to allow the members to vote on the motion put forward. But the motion was submitted citing the rules which only allows the members to discuss and not voting. In this case the Speaker has no choice but use his discretion to throw out the motion citing the discrepancy in submission of the motion. The Speaker’s explanation was not well received by the opposition members.

The entire opposition members of parliament staged a walk out from parliament after learning that the speaker will not give in to their request .

S.K.Devamany, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and the member for Cameron Highlands who present in parliament expressed his concern about the whole episode. According to him , the democracy is the bulwark of human freedom. The people have voted in BN freely with comfortable majority in parliament. YAB Dato Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, being the leader of BN heads the present government with people’s support. It is the people’s choice. So, there is no reason for the opposition members to stage a drama to arouse sentiments among Malaysians against the present government leadership.

The public commented that the opposition members should not neglect their responsibility to represent people’s interest in parliament by staging a walk out. The act of staging a walk out is a mockery to democracy because the parliament members were elected to raise questions on issues pertaining to public interest and play the role of ‘check and balance’ on government . The institution of Parliament is not a place to play politics to meet any one’s political aims and agenda.

I also hear public commenting how is possible for the Pakatan Rakyat with 82 members to get through the motion of no confidence in parliament because BN has 140 members, out number the Pakatan Rakyat .