KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 19 — The motion on the 12th Malaysia Plan Mid-Term Review (12MP MTR) was passed with a majority voice vote in the Dewan Rakyat today, without any opposition MPs in the hall who staged a walkout during the winding up speech by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
A total of 26 ministries had finished winding up the debate of the motion for two days beginning Monday (Sept 18) after 151 MPs debated the motion for three days last week.
With the exception of Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (MUDA-Muar), all the MPs from the Opposition bloc walked out of the house due to their dissatisfaction over Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul’s order for Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin (PN-Putrajaya) to leave the hall for disrupting the winding up session by Anwar, who is also the Minister of Finance.
Radzi was ordered to leave when he continued to dispute Johari’s decision regarding Anwar’s statement which was claimed to have defamed the Putrajaya MP, and repeatedly asked Johari to make a decision for Anwar to retract his statement.
The situation caused a ruckus for about 40 minutes when there was a war of words between MPs from the opposition and the government bloc.
Johari, before making his order on the Putrajaya MP to leave the hall asked the Prime Minister to explain his statement, and Anwar said that the Opposition refused to listen to his explanation because they were familiar with the previous administration’s system of granting discharges not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) in several cases previously.
“Before I could finish explaining, they kept out shouting ‘DNAA’, so what was my response (to that)? ‘You know how the previous administration was… Putrajaya (Radzi) knows’.
“The ministers are also here, the same Attorney-General, the Attorney-General at the time, Tan Sri Idrus Harun, Putrajaya knows what happened,” he said.
Following that, Johari made the decision to order Radzi out after failing to listen to the order to sit down and not disrupt the winding up of the motion, which then led to members of the Opposition, including its leader, Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin (PN-Larut) to leave the chamber in protest.
“If the Speaker asks Putrajaya to leave, it affects our dignity as well, we will all leave as I will not accept something that cannot be held accountable fairly,” he said.
Anwar then continued his winding up for the Ministry of Finance as the last ministry to wind up the debate on the motion tabled on Sept 11.
The Parliament was then adjourned sine die.
