Harapan to pursue three more MOU promises from PM

Pakatan Harapan will pursue three remaining reform pledges made by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob in their memorandum of understanding (MOU).

The three pledges include limiting the tenure of a prime minister to less than 10 years, passing a Parliament Services Act and amending the Parliament Standing Orders.

In a statement, Harapan's presidential council said 15 out of 18 pledges in their MOU had already been implemented.

"The presidential council acknowledges the prime minister's statement two days ago in which he said there was no need for a new agreement.

"This means that the agreement signed on Sept 13, 2021, will be in force until Parliament is dissolved, as stated in Clause 2.1 of the agreement," it said.

Now that the anti-hopping law was out of the way, Harapan said its representatives in the steering committee to implement the reforms in the MOU will seek a meeting soon with its government counterparts.

"(Our representatives) will also seek details of other (reforms) mentioned by the prime minister, including matters involving political financing," it added.

Two days ago, Ismail Sabri said he intended to introduce more reforms such as a law requiring political parties to declare their source of funding and splitting the public prosecutor role from the attorney-general.

Both these issues were not outlined in the MOU, however, Ismail Sabri said there was an "understanding" on these matters between him and the opposition.

Prior to this, there was widespread misinformation that the MOU would expire on July 31.

Instead, both Ismail Sabri and Harapan agreed in the MOU that Parliament should not be dissolved before July 31.

This means that Harapan was still obliged to support Ismail Sabri's supply (budget) bills and any bills that were intended to test the prime minister's support in the Dewan Rakyat.

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Annuar: Refer to MOU's articles 2, 3 to avoid expiry date confusion