KUCHING: There is nothing to warrant the removal of Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof, said Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii.
He said the opposition bloc would defend the Speaker at all costs during the Parliament session on Monday (July 13).
Dr Yii said defending Ariff as Speaker would mean defending parliamentary reforms introduced by the former Pakatan Harapan (PH) government that was facilitated by the Speaker and his deputy.
“Ariff has not shown any reason to be removed, he was reasonable, very wise, so much that we thought he was being unfair and favoured the opposition more, which in his case, the first MP he kicked out was the Bukit Gelugor MP who was with the government.
“That shows that he is not beholden to the executive, so we must defend him so that there is not much interference from the executive branch to the workings of Parliament,” he said in a video message on his Facebook page on Monday (July 13).
Dr Yii said the three branches－legislative, judiciary and executive－must be separated from one another and should not influence one or the other.
“Today is very important day, today we have four motions, the first one is the removal of the Speaker, if that is passed, the second motion is to propose Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun as the new Speaker.
“The third motion is to remove the Deputy Speaker, and the fourth motion is to suggest Pengerang MP Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said as the new Deputy Speaker,” he said.
He said there would be voting for the motion and the most important thing was not who each one voted, but rather who turned up for the session.
“The government has a razor thin majority so one or two that don’t turn up will cause the Bill to collapse and if it collapses, while by convention the Prime Minister does not have to resign, but it doesn’t give him the legitimacy to run the government,” he said.
