One of them, the new chairman of Bersih 2.0, Thomas Fann, even said it might be a good idea not to give such allocations as the money could be an indirect way of “buying” voter loyalty.
Subang MP Wong Chen, of the ruling Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition, said he understood that opposition MPs would receive smaller allocations than PH MPs.
Speaking to FMT, Wong said: “This is wrong.”
The key point, he said, was that MPs should receive more resources to run their office. “We need more resources so that we can hire more researchers for legislative work purposes,” he said.
Wong said the government must do away with MP allocations meant for the local community as “otherwise MPs will be spending a lot of time distributing money and not doing legislative and policy work”.
Recalling the situation during the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration, Wong said the opposition MPs then received zero community allocations from the Prime Minister’s Department.
“Instead, former prime minister Najib Razak gave RM6 million per year to the BN MPs.
“To rub salt into the wound, in most cases the people we defeated would receive RM6 million as coordinator of a respective parliamentary constituency,” he added.
Meanwhile, Kuala Nerus MP Khairuddin Aman Razali of PAS remained positive despite previous announcements that opposition MPs would only get RM100,000 compared with PH MPs who will be receiving RM500,000.
“We still hope that there will be a fair allocation distributed among all the MPs, but are grateful that the prime minister announced in the 11th mid-term review that there are plans to develop Kelantan and Terengganu (states that are administered by PAS).
“I am optimistic if this attitude is maintained, all parties will benefit from Budget 2019.
“My only concern is that there are still several ministers who have been issuing prejudicial statements that could affect the relationship between the government and the opposition, hence affecting the states administered by the opposition.
“I hope such statements will be ignored by the prime minister,” he said.
On budget allocations for opposition MPs and states, Khairuddin said it was not a government versus opposition issue, but about the interests of the people in general.
“Having been entrusted to be the government of the day, it is unnecessary to make the people in constituencies which chose to vote opposition the victims.
“If this is the attitude of the government, the people will continue to suffer from existing problems. The promise to make changes compared with the previous government will then just be a false hope given to the people,” he said.
Meanwhile, political analyst Kamarul Zaman Yusoff said it was best for the PH government to be true to Promise 16 of its manifesto to deal fairly with opposition MPs.
“I note that the opposition leader is yet to be given the status and allocation which is equal to that of a minister. It will improve PH’s image if this can be rectified in the budget.
“I also note that the prime minister announced in June that allocation was to be given to opposition MPs though the amount would be less than the one given to ruling MPs.
“This is considered good already as BN gave nothing to the opposition MPs during its time. But it will be much better if equal allocation or one based on more transparent calculation is given to opposition MPs,” he said.
Kamarul said the government might say that due to financial constraints, it could not ensure equal allocation among all MPs.
“If this is so, and if it’s acceptable to PH MPs, the better alternative could be lowering the allocation for PH MPs a bit so that the amount will be equal,” he said.
Fann meanwhile said: “If you are going to give, give equally. But I am of the view that it’s better not to allocate any funds at all, as these allocations are subjected to all kinds of abuse and accountability issues.
“Even though it is not election time, the constituency development budget can also end up as an indirect way of buying the hearts of voters through money,” he said.
He added that while BN had treated opposition MPs badly in the past, PH needed to do better.