PARLIAMENT A PAS lawmaker has lauded Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia for making a stand on the need to reform Parliament.

Pokok Sena MP Mahfuz Omar ( photo ) said Pandikar was the bold "pendekar (warrior)" who "threatened" Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

"This is the bravery of a warrior. If the speaker was the Asean chairperson, Myanmar would not dare mistreat the Rohingyas," he told the Dewan Rakyat.

He said this as the august house debated the issue of migrants in Malaysia.

However, Mahfuz received a drubbing from the speaker for dragging the latter into the debate.

"The House rules state that you can't make the speaker the subject of the debate," said Pandikar.

Sad state of our democracy

Mahfuz was referring to Pandikar's admission yesterday that he had submitted his resignation to Najib over the parliament's lack of independence.

This prompted Najib to agree to implement reforms, which Mahfuz said proved the sad state of Malaysian democracy.

"I'm quite disappointed with the prime minister [...] the country's democracy is so terrible, only when (Pandikar) threatened (to resign, did Najib say) 'okay, okay, okay'.

"The prime minister should realise that in a democracy, parliament should be independent from any executive influence," he said at an earlier press conference in the parliament lobby.

Among the transformations Pandikar wanted was the abolishment of the minister in charge of parliamentary affairs post, currently held by Shahidan Kassim, and a Parliamentary Bill committee be introduced.

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