Pakatan MPs stage walkout after debate denied

Pakatan Rakyat MPs staged a walkout, led by PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang (right) together with Lim Kit Siang (centre) and Nasaruddin Mat Isa (left).

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal and Clara Chooi - The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — A majority of Pakatan Rakyat backbenchers staged a walkout from Parliament today after Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia refused to allow them to debate a motion tabled by the Home Affairs Minister ordering the Inspector-General of Police to protect the House from obstructions.

Pandikar told the Opposition that the motion was tabled by convention at the opening session of every Parliament sitting and it was not common practice for it to be debated.

Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor), however, rebutted this fact, adding that he had once debated a similar motion in the 1970s.

When Pandikar refused to give in despite loud protest from opposition MPs like DAP’s Chong Eng and PKR’s N. Gobalakrishnan, the group of angry MPs staged a walkout, led by PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.

According to Nga Kor Ming (DAP-Taiping), the motion, moved by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein and supported by his deputy, was a traditional one introduced at the beginning of every new Parliament sitting.

“By disallowing the MPs to debate, the Speaker is setting a precedent and obstructing freedom of speech by the MPs,” he said.

The motion instructs the IGP to “take care that during the present session of this House, the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and opened and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passages of Members to and from this House that there be no annoyance therein and thereabouts; and that Setiausaha Dewan Rakyat do communicate this Order to the IGP.”