Things are not going well for Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin at the moment.
COVID-19 cases are continuing to rise at an alarming rate, but he also has a political crisis to deal with.
Last week, Malaysia’s king rebuked Mr Muhyiddin for misleading Parliament over the status of coronavirus emergency measures in the country.
Then, recently, 11 Umno MPs withdrew support for his government, meaning he’d lost the majority in Parliament.
Despite renewed calls for the under-fire prime minister to resign, Mr Muhyiddin has instead chosen to leave the decision up to his colleagues.
M’sia PM Said He Will Determine His Legitimacy in Next Parliament Sitting
When members of Malaysia’s parliament reconvene in September, they will finally get to decide on whether their Prime Minister stays or leaves his post.
After getting approval from the King, PM Muhyiddin announced today (4 Aug) that Parliament will carry out a confidence motion to determine his legitimacy.
“I am aware that my position as Prime Minister is continuously questioned. Therefore, I have informed the King that I will determine my legitimacy… in Parliament when it sits in September,” he said in a televised address.
For those who don’t know, a confidence vote is a formal process where members of the government vote in order to indicate whether or not they support a leader.
If a prime minister in Malaysia loses a no-confidence vote, he must resign or allow the monarch to choose a new minister.
Who Has the Majority?
In Singapore, one political party forms our government.
But things are a little different across the border; in Malaysia, the ruling government is made up of a coalition, or a group of parties.
And just like Singapore, the Prime Minister isn’t chosen by the people, but by the party in power.
Since the majority coalition forms the government in Malaysia, parties in the ruling majority could simply switch over to the minority to form a new majority if they wanted to do so.
And if the prime minister is not part of the majority, well then he obviously cannot remain in power.
If this is still confusing, watch this video to the end and you should understand:
Last year, the United Malay National Organisation (Umno) said it would provide support for the ruling coalition – Perikatan Nasional – which has PM Muhyiddin as its leader.
Counting the Umno MPs, PM Muhyiddin would have the support of 115 MPs in the 222-seat Parliament (two seats are vacant) – meaning he’d have a majority.
However, 11 Umno MPs withdrew their support yesterday, meaning the prime minister only has 104 MPs on his side – six short of a majority.
PM Muhyiddin Maintains He Still Has the Majority
Despite this, PM Muhyiddin is confident that he still has the majority in parliament.
“I have received a number of statutory declarations from MPs that convince me that I still have the confidence of the majority,” he said. “Hence, my resignation… does not arise.”
In his address, the prime minister also accused his opponents of creating a political crisis and urged public servants, especially frontliners, not to get distracted in their duty by the chaos.
Meanwhile, Malaysia recorded 17,105 new COVID-19 cases in the country yesterday, some 600 short of their largest daily case count so far.
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Featured Image: S.O / shutterstock.com