“Its A Free For All”: Group Of Lawyers Release Statement On How Things Should’ve Been Done

By Quinny Tan  •  21 Nov 2022 in News

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In the midst of all the political confusion and turmoil the nation is facing, constitutional lawyer New Sin Yew breaks down how he thinks the new government could be formed.

On 19 November we exercised our constitutional right to vote and broke the scale for the biggest turnout ever, but now it seems that we have to decide on which coalitions to combine to form the best outcome for the country.

New Sin Yew says that, “The incumbent BN+PN+GPS govt is currently at an advantage because together they form the biggest bloc.”

“They can negotiate among themselves to obtain the simple majority that is needed to form the government and appoint a PM.”

There is a convention that the party with the most seats should be given the first opportunity to form the government, but the PN+BN+GPS bloc is bigger than PH. So, what now?

The Federal Constitution is silent on how to deal with a hung Parliament, mostly due to the fact that this hasn’t happened before.

All it says is the YDPA shall first elect a PM who, in his judgment, is likely to command the confidence of a majority in Parliament.

Although having set a Westminster system in place, the people in power don’t seem to be following the conventions, and the political parties are negotiating amongst themselves without much regard to it.

“It’s a free for all.”

According to BFM, a group of people including lawyers, said that in the present context the Pakatan Harapan coalition should be given the first choice of eliciting support from other parties to form the government, by convention, as it secured the largest number of votes (82).

Read the full statement below: