From Terence Netto

DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang’s suggestion that the government, in wanting to make Parliament more answerable, should allow for the holding of ‘Opposition days’ is a proposition that should be taken up with alacrity.

Not only because the idea is consonant with Pakatan Harapan’s agenda of institutional reform, but also because it will help to show up what appears to be Perikatan Nasional’s reluctance to project their parliamentary brain trust.

Whatever the spin Bersatu secretary-general Hamzah Zainudin puts on PN’s creation of portfolio committees, in preference to a shadow cabinet, it won’t wash because Hamzah’s gambit is part of an overall evasion of parliamentary responsibility.

PN nominated Hamzah as the opposition leader, which by parliamentary convention positions him as the coalition’s prime minister-designate.

But in PN’s convoluted line-up, both Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin and PAS chief Abdul Hadi Awang rank higher than Hamzah in the PN parliamentary pecking order.

This can only be explained as the reluctance of component party chiefs to put themselves in the line of parliamentary fire.

It appears they want to lead a PN government but they don’t want to lead the opposition.

In other words, they want the glory drive but without the blood and sweat of mastery of the minutiae of governance, which is what leading the opposition from the front would entail.

Kit Siang’s proposition that there be “Opposition days” in the Dewan Rakyat, wherein PN can bring up any issue they want,  would force the PN parliamentary cohort to step up to the plate to display their mettle.

It’s not that the unity coalition’s parliamentary cohort is all spit and polish, but really, we know little about the quality and fibre of the PN delegation.

The holding of “‘Opposition days” in the term of the 15th Parliament will furnish this lack.

The “green wave” at the general election in November that was said to have been responsible for the joint collection of 75 parliamentary seats by PAS and Bersatu owed its vigour to the perception among Islamic voters that Umno was corrupt while PAS and Bersatu were clean.

Would that perception hold water when, as it is expected to happen soon, a series of indictments are laid out against a host of winning contestants from GE15?

Now, coupled with what is certain to be a long drawn out court process with an ongoing PN parliamentary showing that is less-than-stellar, would then the “‘green wave” be as vibrant in GE16 than it was at GE15?

Well, not a few would argue that the basis for the “green wave” is religious ideology, something usually impervious to empirical reality.

The point is conceded, but in a parliamentary democracy the best test of truth is still the power of an assertion or perception to fend for itself in the competition of the marketplace which is, of course, Parliament.

In sum, bring on the “Opposition days”.

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.