…………………..a certain form of parliamentary politics in the country.
It is not surprising to find that there is a general consensus that political fragmentation – generally perceived to have started in Feb 2020 - has weakened political parties and hindered the functioning of legislative bodies in this country.
The spread of authority across power centers in the various political coalitions, both within and outside, makes it challenging to produce an effective government.
Fragmentation as seen in the Negeri Sembilan fiasco, has hamstrung party leaders in enforcing party discipline or control factions.
Party leaders are now unable to exert the kind of effective party leadership characteristic of parliamentary systems.
Post Feb 2020, where there were immense and overwhelming resentment over the defections amongst the public, the Anti-hopping law, known as the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 3) Act 2022, was introduced and passed in July 2022 solely to prevent Members of Parliament (MPs) from switching parties after election.
As shown in Feb 2020, party switching can make or break government.
Thus, this law aimed to preserve the relative positions of parties on election night for the duration of the parliamentary term and impose the sanction of disqualification on those who disturb that balance.
This law, at addressing floor crossing through legal controls on defections, presents a new moment in the history of our parliamentary government.
Events since then have shown that enforcing party discipline through legal means is immensely challenging.
It tends to address only the symptoms, rather than the root causes, of party indiscipline, and can be detrimental, boosting legislative stability at the expense of the legislature’s constitutive features.
Again, as shown in the recent fiasco in Negeri Sembilan, 14 MPs from UMNO realized that they had bargaining power over the post-election coalition formation, they exploited their position by declaring that they are no longer supporting the sitting Mentri Besar.
In fact, this episode showed that corruption amongst the politicians and the political elites just shifted form.
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