COMMENT | Should government change and the parliamentary check-and-balance be decoupled?

The ultimate guarantee of check and balance to governments is the power to fire them. All democracies give voters such power with periodical elections.

But governments can also be fired before the end of their terms.

In presidentialism, Congress can impeach and dismiss the president. In parliamentarianism, the prime minister may be dismissed on losing the confidence of the House or the budget vote.

Given Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's controversial rise and pathological evasion of parliamentary oversight, it is natural that many Malaysians think of only one substantial way of check and balance - dismissal.

However, it might be time for Malaysians who seriously want good governance and political stability to think about the counterintuitive where job security may need to be offered to the embattled prime minister in exchange for a functioning government.

Muhyiddin is unremovable for now

Why? Muhyiddin is unremovable before the 15th general election. The GE15 may be conveniently prolonged by him as long as the Covid-19 pandemic is raging.

There are two ways to dismiss the prime minister, but both ways seem to have insurmountable roadblocks.

The first way is to form an alternative government, but this needs a positive majority in support of a new prime minister which neither the official opposition Pakatan Harapan nor the unofficial opposition Umno can agree upon.

If PKR president Anwar Ibrahim could assemble...