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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is considering making it illegal for
lawmakers to switch sides amid reports the opposition was trying to
lure ruling party defectors in an attempt to unseat the government,
a minister said.
“To me, these [defectors] have no integrity
and I hope the government can formulate a special law,” de facto
law minister Zaid Ibrahim told state news agency Bernama late
Saturday.
“It’s high time that we have the
Anti-Hopping Law to stop such acts,” Zaid, who is a minister in
the Prime Minister’s Office tasked with judicial oversight, told
Bernama.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s
race-based Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition faced its worst ever
election results on March 8, losing five states and its two-thirds
majority in parliament to the opposition.
Emboldened by the results, opposition figurehead
Anwar Ibrahim said that ruling coalition lawmakers from the eastern
states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island had contacted him to
discuss switching sides.
The power bloc there could unseat the government
if it changed hands.
But Sarawak parliamentarian Richard Riot has
denied speculation amid media reports he would be the first
lawmaker to defect to the opposition, Bernama said.
“Out of the blue I became a star but let me
announce that it has never crossed my mind to move away from the BN.
I am a BN man, voted in under the BN ticket and I will stay put with
the BN,” he told the news agency.
The chief minister of opposition-controlled
Kelantan state, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, has come out in support of
Zaid proposal.”
-- AFP
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