KUALA LUMPUR – A Perikatan Nasional (PN) lawmaker has jumped to the defence of his coalition’s top leaders for not attending all eight Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQT) sessions throughout the recently concluded Dewan Rakyat sittings.
This comes after Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil took the leaders to task after they were absent from this morning’s session.
In a statement, Tasek Gelugor MP Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan said the answers provided by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim during PMQT were of “low quality”, causing many to lose interest in listening.
“As far as I see, the prime minister appears to evade more than he provides full answers, or he does not know the full answer. Many of his replies were draggy, without facts,” the Bersatu man said today.
“There are times when he can’t even clearly pronounce the name of an act. His sentences are also sometimes all over the place.
“So, the (matter) that needs attention is the prime minister’s answers. If the quality is low, then the people’s interest to listen will certainly be low too.”
Earlier, Fahmi had slammed PN chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang, and opposition leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin over their repeated absence from PMQTs.
Noting that PMQTs are held every Tuesday, Fahmi pointed out that the opposition could have taken the opportunity to ask questions and confront the prime minister.
Fahmi’s PKR colleague, Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin, also chided the opposition for their no-shows, pointing out that in the United Kingdom, the session is typically a field where the prime minister directly faces off with the opposition leader.
Wan Saiful, however, accused Fahmi of spinning the situation, noting that opposition leaders are typically unable to even pose questions to the prime minister.
This, he said, is because only questions that have been approved by the speaker are allowed to be raised in the House by the MP who had filed the query.
Wan Saiful said the MP would then be given a supplementary question to pose, while another is given to the opposite bench.
“What this means is if it is my turn to ask the original question, then I will be the sole person from PN that can ask the supplementary question, while the other will be from the government. Other MPs can’t.”
In this regard, he proposed the session be improved by allocating the opposition leader one of the three slots for PMQT each week. – The Vibes, April 4, 2023
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