KUCHING, March 8: Sarawak Patriots Association (SPA) urged the federal government to enact an anti-hopping law to prevent elected representatives from switching party after they are elected to office.
In a press statement today, its president, Datuk John Lau, pointed out that if elected representatives switched party, it would only be ethical for them to resign and recontest under their new party.
“It is not ethical to desert the party that helps the representative to campaign during the general election and thereafter they jumped to another party.
“This is a question of integrity as the people voted for them during general election because of their political affiliations,” he said.
Though there was silence in the Federal Constitution concerning anti-hopping law, Lau urged the Pakatan Harapan (PH) federal government to set a precedence and leave a legacy to enact the anti-hopping law.
“We are sure our Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad would like to do this.
Lau emphasised that it was high time for the government to consider implementing an anti-hopping law so that elected representatives who wished to desert their parties would think twice about their actions.
He gave the example of the 2009 Perak Constitutional crisis, which resulted in the collapse of Pakatan Rakyat state government when three of its state legislators defected to Barisan Nasional (BN), giving the BN regime more reason not to give any consideration to the anti-hopping law, which brought no benefits to them.
“The belief was that such (political) frogs would only hop from the opposition camp to the government camp.
“Elected representatives need to understand that they are the people’s representatives who have voted for him/her to Parliament. They need to be responsible to the people and leave aside political differences,” he added. — DayakDaily
