Nazri Aziz said ideally, MPs and political coalitions should be made to stick to their affiliations for a fixed term of five years to honour the choice made by voters.
“We should make do and be loyal (to the party) regardless of what happens. What difference does it make between one MP hopping and MPs defecting en masse? It is basically an army of frogs jumping,” he said referring to the term used to describe defectors.
He said this in a talk on Astro Awani tonight.
Nazri said the anti-hopping law was a good step to remind all MPs that if they switched parties en masse, then there would be many by-elections.
“Say 30 MPs change parties, then you have 30 by-elections. People will get angry. This has to be a deterrent, forcing the YBs to think a few times before they jump.” he said.
Yesterday, Mahathir said mass defections involving an entire party to another should be allowed if the party leadership agreed to it.
The former prime minister said this was important in situations where no party won more than 50% of the seats in a general election (GE).
Nazri also agreed with fellow panellist, Warisan president Shafie Apdal, that prior to the anti-hopping bill, party hopping had become a sort of a “business”. “It has become a money-making profession,” he said.
Shafie said there were Sabah legislators and MPs that had switched parties at least seven to 10 times in the past, wreaking havoc for past state governments. He further claimed that one lawmaker received between RM4 million and RM5 million to defect each time, with the turncoat later pledging to spend the sum on his constituents.
He said in reality, only about RM1 million would be spent on the constituents and the rest would likely be kept in fixed deposits for personal use.
The former Sabah chief minister said this had led to people becoming disillusioned about politicians and their priorities. He said hopefully the anti-hopping bill would put an end to this.
Meanwhile, Nazri said concerted efforts must be made to improve the anti-hopping laws in the future so no underhanded tactics would be used to entice people to jump ship.
Separately, DAP secretary-general Loke Siew Fook said graft busters should not just look at kickbacks from party hopping, but also those who were promised positions.