Muhyiddin's government still stands, UMNO needs to decide to allow members to withdraw support - Analyst

KUALA LUMPUR: The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government (PN) under the leadership of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin still stands and can continue the administration of the country.

Although some say the Prime Minister has lost the majority, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) political analyst, Prof Dr Sivamurugan Pandian, said the coalition under PN still has a large number compared to the opposition.

On the other hand, he said, the opposition has so far not been able to show that they have strong support.

"So, this government is still a legitimate government under Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, especially Article 43 of the Constitution clearly show that the Prime Minister should be the one who gets the majority and confidence among the members of the Dewan Rakyat.

"That is clearly under the absolute prerogative of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to either accept the resignation of the Prime Minister, dissolve Parliament or appoint another Prime Minister, if he feels there are other candidates who have the confidence of the majority of Dewan Rakyat members," he told Astro AWANI, here on Sunday.

He further explained that none of the parties came forward to withdraw their support for Muhyiddin, as was done by Machang Member of Parliament, Datuk Ahmad Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub, on Saturday.

Therefore, Sivamurugan said, UMNO needs to determine whether the party allows its members to withdraw support just like that, or it needs to be done 'en bloc'.

"Yes, we have seen that UMNO has expressed its intention to support Tan Sri Muhyiddin until the 15th General Election (GE-15).

"That is why I feel UMNO wants GE-15 to be expedited so that it can move to the election to determine who should govern the country and determine their prime ministerial candidate," he said.

Muhyiddin currently has the support of 110 MPs after Ahmad Jazlan stated that he no longer supports the Pagoh Member of Parliament.