Ismail Sabri has seriously jeopardised the possibility of reaching a historic confidence-supply-reform agreement between the government and the opposition

I had never expected that I would on the same day praised the Prime Minister and later to castigate the Prime Minister.

This was what happened on Saturday.

I had on Saturday morning praised the ninth Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri, for his tweet “Nobody is above the law” in connection with the death of security guard Thava Sagayam, who was assaulted at a condominium in Ipoh last December for refusing to allow the use of the condominium’s swimming pool which was closed, and said it “reinforced confidence that the Prime Minister will uphold the rule of law and good governance principles as well as brightened prospects of confidence-supply-reform agreement between the government and the opposition”.

But on the same evening, I castigated Ismail Sabri and asked the new Prime Minister whether he was going to disregard the decree of the Yang di Pertuan Agong in having a motion of confidence on him as Prime Minister when Parliament reconvenes on Sept. 14 while commenting on the Attorney-General Idris Harun’s bizarre statement that a vote of confidence would undermine the Yang di Pertuan Agong’s power.

This was the latest serious misjudgement in a litany of mistakes that Ismail Sabri had made after becoming the ninth Prime Minister.

In one day, the Prime Minister has changed from enhancing to jeopardising the possibility of a political breakthrough in Parliament with the government and opposition reaching a historic confidence-supply-reform accord and ushering a political ceasefire for the next 12-18 months until the 15th General Election so that everyone, whether government, opposition or the people, can focus single-mindedly on winning the losing war against the Covid-19 pandemic while carrying out parliamentary and institutional reforms.

The Yang di Pertuan Agong had decreed on August 18 that the new prime minister must seek a vote of confidence in Parliament as soon as possible to determine his legitimacy, that MPs should work together to focus on the Covid-19 response and economic recovery and that “the winner does not win everything while the loser does not lose everything”.

It would be most unfortunate that it is the new Prime Minister who is jeopardising the government and the opposition reaching a confidence-supply-reform understanding in accordance with the decree of the Yang di Pertuan Agong.