Opposition walks out of Tabung Haji RCI sitting as Speaker rejects deferment plea

The opposition benches emptied within minutes of the gavel falling on Tuesday morning's special parliamentary session. The trigger was procedural, but the grievance ran deeper: lawmakers from the Perikatan Nasional coalition had come to Parliament expecting to debate a Royal Commission of Inquiry report into Tabung Haji, the Islamic pilgrimage fund, only to find themselves locked out of meaningful participation by the absence of the prime minister and the Speaker's refusal to postpone.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was not in the chamber. He was at home undergoing physiotherapy following elective surgery to repair a para-umbilical hernia. In his place sat Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and other Cabinet ministers, a substitution that the opposition's chief whip, Takiyuddin Hassan of Kota Bharu, found fundamentally inadequate. "If we debate without the prime minister, it is just as good as doing a press conference," Takiyuddin told the Dewan Rakyat. He pointed out what the Speaker himself had acknowledged: this was not a full parliamentary sitting but merely a ministerial briefing, and no votes would be taken. The opposition had submitted a formal request for deferment the day before. The Speaker, Tan Sri Johari Abdul, rejected it.

What followed was a brief but heated exchange. Shahidan Kassim, the Arau MP, raised a separate complaint about the RCI report itself—specifically, that it had not sought clarifications from Lim Guan Eng, who served as finance minister from May 2018 to February 2020, even though the inquiry covered the period from 2014 to 2020. When Hulu Langat MP Mohd Sany Hamzan interjected to insist the sitting proceed as scheduled, the two men clashed. The moment crystallized the deeper fracture: the government wanted to move forward; the opposition wanted to be heard by the person in charge.

The Speaker stood firm. Standing Order 11(3) permitted the sitting to continue, she said. The government was represented. The business would proceed. Within moments, the opposition lawmakers rose and left the chamber.

Outside Parliament, the opposition's grievances multiplied. Takiyuddin questioned why the RCI report had not been tabled and debated in Parliament before being declassified for public consumption. Opposition Leader Hamzah Zainudin raised a broader question about timing: why was Anwar releasing the report now, after years of withholding it on the grounds that disclosure might damage public confidence in the Malays? The questions hung unanswered. Bersatu, another opposition party, remained in the chamber, signaling a fracture within the opposition coalition itself. By the time journalists pressed Hamzah on whether Bersatu would join the walkout, the answer was uncertain—a small but telling sign of how fragmented the opposition response had become.