PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali has called on the government to amend the election law to allow party-hoppers to re-contest their seats.

At present, the election law would not allow elected representatives who quit their party to step down from their seat as they cannot re-contest the constituency for five years.

NONE “Where a candidate who contested on behalf a certain party and later quit that party, it is only morally right for him to resign as the elected representative,” said Mustafa ( right ) at a press conference today.

“If he is allow to re-contest the seat, he can then test whether he has the support from his constituents for his decision to quit the party.”

The election law was amended to discourage party-hoppers from quitting their seats soon after Umno leader Shahrir Samad won the Johor Baru by-election in 1988.

Shahrir had resigned as MP for Johor Baru following the bitter split between then premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad and rival leader Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

Shahrir, a Razaleigh supporter at that time, resigned from his parliamentary seat to prove he had the support from Johor Baru voters after being challenged to do so.

He ran as an independent and won. Mahathir subsequently amended the election law to stop such actions.

“I hope that the law will be amended to allow candidates to prove whether they have the support from the voters,” said Mustafa.

‘We back Anwar’

Meanwhile, PAS reiterated that it will continue to support Anwar Ibrahim as opposition leader despite the resignation of three PKR MPs recently.

"The three parties that form Pakatan Rakyat will continue to give full support to Anwar," said Mustafa.

He said the government and Dewan Rakyat speaker had no right to decide the post of the opposition leader as this was prerogative of opposition members.

Mustafa said the spate of resignations involving PKR did not affect cooperation of the three parties within Pakatan.

    

He added that the resignations could be down to inexperience and frustration as the elected representatives lacked the financial resources, unlike those in government who received RM1 million each annually for development projects.

Mustafa did not discount that the resignations were connected to BN’s quest to regain two-thirds majority in Parliament.