PETALING JAYA: Assemblymen should not double up as MPs, Sarawak state assembly speaker Asfia Awang Nassar said today following a heated exchange over the suspension of opposition leader Chong Chieng Jen.
The argument was sparked after Pending assemblyman, Violet Yong of DAP, said it was unfair for Asfia to say that Chong had chosen not to attend the sitting. She said Asfia "knew very well” that Chong, who is Stampin MP, was at the Dewan Rakyat for a parliamentary matter, yet had allowed the motions against him at the state assembly to proceed.
Yong then accused Asfia of denying Chong’s right to defence, which was, embarrassingly, against the principle of natural justice. In response, Asfia said Yong and Chong, who is also Padungan assemblyman, came to see him seeking an exemption, to which he agreed.
“But the procedure is it must be in writing through the secretary,” Asfia said in a video posted on Sarawak DAP’s Facebook page today. However, Asfia said Chong had attacked him on Facebook over the Hansard, a post which gave him the impression that Chong was in Sarawak.
Yong, however, argued that despite Chong’s action, it did not give the speaker the right to say that he “chose to be absent”.
“Don’t say that. You can say ‘I don’t know why he is absent today’, but you don’t say he chose to be absent. So Mr Speaker be more polite. Please be fair to the opposition and don’t be so tilted in your ruling and in your argument. I know you are trying to be in the good book of GPS,” she said, referring to the state’s ruling coalition, Gabungan Parti Sarawak.
In response, Asfia shot back: “Don’t be an MP and an assemblyman at the same time if you don’t have the time.”
Chong, who is also Sarawak DAP chief, was suspended from the state assembly yesterday for the remainder of the current session after a motion was adopted alleging that he misled the assembly about Sarawak’s 2027 budget document and acted improperly during its debate.
The motion alleged that Chong deliberately misled the assembly on Oct 13 and acted improperly during the budget debate on Oct 14, by repeatedly making allegations he could not substantiate. It accused him of using offensive and insulting language against fellow assemblymen and imputing improper motives to them.