Parliament: Our Voice

It's not just a building, a symbol, or a debating chamber. The Lower House of Parliament, the Dewan Rakyat, is where the people of Malaysia make their decisions on how they want their country to be run. It is where policies are set, and decisions are made that tell the Government (the Prime Minister and the Cabinet) how to do their job.

Who is Parliament?

Parliament works through representation. You are present in Parliament, your voice is present in Parliament, through your elected representative. If your elected representative is not obeying your mandate (whether you voted for them or their rival) you can write and tell them what they should be doing. During elections, this power is stronger – it is when you can make your choice between the different policies that you want the Government to follow.

Parliament gets its power from this legitimacy, from being your voice. The Government gets its mandate from Parliament. Ultimately, they both exist to do what you (and others like you) tell them to do.

How does it work?

The idea behind Parliament is that representatives will debate ideas and suggestions, and that the individual members will then vote in the best interests of their constituents (you). Each Parliamentary session starts with the Government putting forward its plans for the next Parliamentary session. The Parliament discusses its good and bad points. Then they go into how that plan will actually be achieved – how much money is to be allocated, what legislation needs to be passed, and who is going to be responsible. It is the Government's job to make sure that this happens.

What are the committees and caucuses?

In Malaysia, we have Select Committees, which are set up to investigate a particular matter, and Parliamentary Caucuses. Both Committees and Caucuses are cross-party, including people from all the political parties. The Committees are set up by the Government to investigate a problem or issue that is of concern to all, for example, a Select Committee could be established to investigate crime. It would then come up with recommendations and suggestions. The Government is generally expected to institute these recommendations, because it initiated the committee in the first place.

A caucus is more informal, set up by any Parliamentarian on an issue that they think requires sustained debate and discussion, preferably generating a cross-party consensus of some kind. Current caucuses include a caucus on gender, on Burma and on human rights. They don't have as much power as a committee, but because they aren't set a specific task, they can look at issues from a broader perspective and over a longer time period.

But I vote twice. Who's this other fella?

All Malaysians that are registered outside of the Federal Territories (KL, Putrajaya and Labuan) get to appoint one representative to the Federal Parliament (the Dewan Rakyat) and one to the State Parliament (the Dewan Undangan Negeri). Malaysia has a federal system, which means that there are some powers that are reserved just for the States, some that are shared by States and the Federal (or central) Government and some that are just for the Federal Government. The line between these powers is often blurry – States govern water and land, but the Federal Government governs 'the environment', for example. But States still have a lot of power – they could institute local government elections, they can make decisions over privatisation of water and other utilities and they can even institute procedures to help increase transparency and combat corruption at a state level (such as State-wide Freedom of Information legislation).

The point of both the State and Federal parliaments is not to be engaged in fixing drains and roads, building schools or catching crooks and rapists. These are done by the bureaucrats employed by the Government, on behalf of Parliament. Government should institute the mechanisms for ensuring adequate money and resources are put into fixing drains, roads, education and law enforcement. What's needed in Parliaments are people with the vision to put into place the mechanisms for getting things done – not people who run around fixing things themselves.