PETALING JAYA: Dewan Rakyat Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun has demanded Tasek Gelugor MP Shabudin Yahaya explain the error he made while counting the bloc votes for the finance ministry’s 2021 budget earlier this week.
In a letter to the Barisan Nasional MP, Azhar said Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil had submitted a motion to refer Shabudin to the rights and privileges committee for misleading the house with the vote miscount.
“In this matter, the Lembah Pantai MP had considered the occurrence as an action that was in contempt of the Dewan Rakyat under Standing Orders 36(12).
“Hence, you are requested to offer an explanation over the matter and include evidence or documents that support your explanation,” Azhar said.
Standing Order 36(12) states that members of the House who make statements that mislead the Dewan are deemed to be in contempt and may be referred to the rights and privileges committee.
Chaos broke out in the Dewan Rakyat earlier this week after MPs were told the bloc voting for the finance ministry’s 2021 budget on Monday was wrongly counted.
Deputy speaker Rashid Hasnon said he was informed by Shabudin that the latter had wrongly included Padang Rengas MP Nazri Aziz in the list to support the ministry’s budget at the committee stage, although he was not in the hall during the voting.
Opposition MPs were up in arms as they said this should not have happened since the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government only had a majority of two MPs. They demanded another vote.