KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 — The Barisan Nasional (BN) has lost its moral ground to remain in government, Umno lawmaker Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today.

The Padang Rengas MP said the ruling coalition lost its edge after its motion to extend a controversial clause in the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) 2012 that allows for detention without trial was defeated during yesterday’s bloc vote in Parliament.

“In my view, it’s difficult for us to stand here today to run the government because we have lost the moral ground and lost the motion,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat while debating a Bill to amend the Federal Constitution.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin who is from Bersatu had yesterday tabled a motion to extend Sub-section 4(5) of Sosma, which allows for a 28-day detention period, for another five years starting July 17, 2022.

In his debate speech, Nazri, a former law minister, cited the practice of democracy in the United Kingdom whereby if the government of the day loses when presenting motions and Bills to Parliament, the right course of action is to cede to the will of the people. 

“Although there is no precedent (of this practice in Malaysia), according to the practice of democracy as practised in the United Kingdom (UK), if the government loses when it puts forward a motion or Bill, the right path is to regain the support of the people as voters,” he said.

At the same time, he stressed that what has happened is now a matter of perception.

Nazri said while PH only objected to the motion, the public sees it as the government losing support.

“Politics revolves around perception. So the people’s perception is: the government has the majority, (yet) we lost.

“It doesn’t matter that you (PH) said the MoU was not affected by the motion’s failure. How the people see it is that we lost,” he said.

He, however, clarified that this was merely his personal opinion and it was up to his party Umno to decide what to do next.

“So I leave it to my party to decide. They once pushed (for snap polls) and at that time, I disagreed. I said we should not have a general election because there was no reason to as we have the MoU.

“But today, I have no moral ground to stand here and say that we need not dissolve and have a general election,” he added.

Nazri had previously spoken out against an early general election, indicating that Umno would be placing its own interests before that of the people.

Yesterday, Opposition MPs defeated a motion to extend sub-section 4(5) of the Sosma Act, during a bloc vote, by a razor-thin margin of 86 to 85 from the government’s side.