KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Harapan communications director and Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil said the defeat of the motion in Parliament did not mean a loss of faith in the government.
He said on Twitter that this motion was not included in the matters negotiated in the MOU between the Opposition and the government.
DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke also pointed out that the opposition move was not a violation of the memorandum of understanding between Pakatan and the government.
“This is because the motion on Sosma and other motions have nothing to do with the MOU,” he said, adding that the MOU only involved two issues – the Budget and any vote of no confidence against the prime minister.
“As such, we were free to make our own stand.
“It is consistent with our stance that Sosma has to be looked into and studied again,” he said.
He described the defeat of the motion as an “extraordinary” event.
Loke, the Seremban MP, noted that it was a historical day in the Dewan Rakyat.
“The motion was defeated by the Opposition.
“It is the first time in history,” he told a press conference after the Dewan Rakyat sitting yesterday.
This is the first time that a motion brought by the government has been defeated in the Dewan Rakyat.
On Sept 12, 2018, the then Pakatan government failed to repeal the Anti-Fake News Act after 28 Dewan Negara senators opposed the Bill to repeal the Act, while 21 supported it, with three members abstaining.
The Anti-Fake News Act was finally repealed after a successful second attempt in October 2019.
On April 9, 2019, Pakatan also failed to get the nod from the Dewan Rakyat for the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019, which sought to restore the status of Sabah and Sarawak as equal partners with Peninsular Malaysia as enshrined in the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
Out of 197 MPs at the the Dewan Rakyat, 138 MPs voted for the Bill, while none voted against.
Another 59 abstained but the Bill required a two-thirds majority, or the agreement of 148 MPs before it could be passed.