Speaker should be elected, not appointed

The Bar Council and several civil society groups have proposed that the speaker of the Dewan Rakyat should be elected by the parliamentarians, instead of being appointed by any one party.

Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah said it is important that Parliament has an impartial speaker who cannot be influenced by whoever had won the general election.

Currently, BN, as the ruling coalition, appoints the speaker and the deputy speaker.

“In all matters before the House, they (the MPs) have an interest and should be directly involved,” Maria (right) said after a meeting between the NGOs and Pakatan Rakyat Mps yesterday.

She said MPs could elect the speaker by way of a secret ballot to ensure that the speaker is democratically elected.

Meanwhile, Syahredzan Johan (below) of electoral reform group Projek Beres said the United Kingdom, which is a model for Westminster-style governments, elects speakers who are not from the ruling coalition so as to avoid unfairness during debates.

Chairperson of the NGO Engage, Thomas Fann, also agreed, saying that electing the parliamentary speaker is an important step to ensure accountability.

“If a person is appointed, then he is answerable to those who appointed him, but if he is elected by the House, then he is answerable to the House,” Fann said.

The suggestion was among the issues raised to the 18 Pakatan MPs in the two-hour meeting, which no BN parliamentarian attended.

Despite this, Syahredzan, who is a lawyer, said he is convinced that the MPs present could help spark debates that would lead to the election of the speaker.

“Our hope is that we can bring a few issues to the government’s attention,” he said.

Maria said the NGOs also proposed for a roadshow to promote the election of the House speaker.

“What is being proposed is not new. It is already in the ‘standing orders’, but did not become law. The question now is to pressure the MPs to implement what had been proposed,” she said.