Anthony Loke: I was ready to resign as minister if I couldn’t get PM to reconsider foundlings’ citizenship amendment

Anthony Loke: I was ready to resign as minister if I couldn’t get PM to reconsider foundlings’ citizenship amendment



Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke and DAP leaders pose for a photo during the 18th DAP National Congress at Ideal Convention Centre (IDCC) in Shah Alam March 16, 2025. — Picture by Firdaus Latif

Sunday, 16 Mar 2025 3:28 PM MYT


KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke today said he was ready to step down as transport minister last year, if he had failed to get Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to drop the government’s planned constitutional amendment to remove abandoned babies’ right to automatic Malaysian citizenship.

Speaking at DAP’s 18th national congress, Loke revealed his readiness to give up his ministerial post in order to stick to the party’s principles.


Noting that the proposal to remove the right to automatic citizenship for foundlings last year had been criticised for not being humanitarian, Loke said MPs from within the ruling government and not just DAP had been uncomfortable with it.

Loke said he had called up DAP’s central leadership Central Executive Committee (CEC) and the party’s MPs in a meeting in March 2024, where he asked them to cast their votes in a secret ballot in the meeting before the proposed law change was expected to be brought to Parliament the next day.


With all present disagreeing with tabling the proposed constitutional amendment on foundlings except for four individuals, Loke said he told DAP MPs in the meeting that he respected their freedom to vote.

“Although I am a minister, secretary-general, leader of the party, I will not force our MPs to make a decision they don’t agree to,” he said in a speech at the congress held at Shah Alam.

Loke had noted that many female DAP MPs had said they could not accept the proposal as it went against their conscience, as they had said: “I’m a mother, how can I forsake an abandoned baby — it’s not their fault, it’s their parents’ fault, put them by the roadside, then they lose their citizenship right.”

He said he had told DAP MPs that he would meet the prime minister, as he coincidentally had a meeting that night with the prime minister.

“I told them, if I cannot convince the prime minister to change that, tomorrow I will resign as minister, you can all break ranks, vote on your conscience in the Dewan Rakyat,” he said.

At the meeting at the prime minister’s official residence at Seri Perdana where Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail and Agriculture and Food Security Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Sabu was also present, Loke said he had told Anwar that many MPs did not agree to the proposed amendment on foundlings’ citizenship rights.

“I didn’t say I would resign. I didn’t make any threats — that I would withdraw support. I only said, Datuk Seri, can you consider or not, because many MPs don’t agree.

“The prime minister asked Saifuddin, is this very important, this amendment? This is something that has been there for decades. He said he himself felt that from a humanitarian aspect, maybe we should consider. Not up to 15 minutes of discussion, the prime minister agreed to ask the home minister to postpone that amendment the next day,” he said.

Anwar is also Pakatan Harapan chairman, while Saifuddin Nasution is also Pakatan Harapan secretary-general and Mohamad is also president of PH component party Parti Amanah Negara.

In the end, the proposed amendment to remove foundlings’ legal right to automatically become Malaysians was removed from the Bill.

Loke explained why he shared this story: “I want to tell all DAP members, firstly, DAP will not give up its principles for positions. If there are voices of Opposition from MPs, CEC members that are not in line with the government, if I cannot bring any change, I was willing to resign that day also. I have been a minister, lost the minister post, become a minister again, not a problem.”

But he also said that one must be polite and bring convincing arguments when speaking to the prime minister to ask him to reconsider matters, instead of rudely threatening to withdraw support.

Loke denied that DAP leaders were no longer brave enough to voice out their stand after becoming ministers, and said the party merely communicates differently as it is no longer an opposition party and is part of the ruling government.

He said there was a need for DAP to voice out strategically and with wisdom through dialogues and in meetings, with an emphasis on finding solutions to hot issues instead of engaging in wars of words publicly.

“Most importantly, we must find solutions for each issue and polemic. If merely voicing out and stating views, but the problem is not resolved, what’s the use? Certainly, we will continue to voice out, we carry out our roles responsibly, there is not one issue we do not solve. Any polemic we bring it and the prime minister raises it in the weekly Cabinet meetings,” he said, and gave the example of the foundlings’ citizenship matter as an example of how matters were resolved.

He said that any hot-button issues were resolved after being brought to Cabinet meetings, and that the prime minister himself had at a Cabinet meeting resolved one such issue of proposed guidelines for non-Muslims’ events attended by Muslims.