Raja Ponteng Dewan

Watchdog identifies 'kaki ponteng' MPs


Pagoh MP Muhyiddin Yassin has the worst Dewan Rakyat attendance record last year and the year to date.

This was according to the MyMP initiative which released what it called a "B15" list of MPs yesterday.

"Right at the bottom (of the list) is our former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin," said MyMP.

MyMP noted that Muhyiddin was in the company of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob because they also made the "B15" list.

"As for the best performing MPs? Anwar (Ibrahim) has an exemplary 92.86 percent attendance rate, while former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak is at 50 percent.

"However, we hear that the latter might be dropping soon," wrote MyMP.

Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin


Since July 2021, the Dewan Rakyat has begun recording attendance on the Hansard (official parliament transcript).

Malaysiakini has attempted to verify MyMP's findings by compiling the Dewan Rakyat attendance using a program made freely available by Github user Thevesh and conducted some further verifications independently.

Although MyMP had called it a "B15" list, its list contained only 14 names. Based on Malaysiakini's list, the bottom 16 are as follows:

MyMP had created "B15" list because, since July last year, it wanted to highlight the 15 MPs with perfect attendance.

The most noteworthy, at least for MyMP, among the top 15 MPs was Mohd Salim Sharif (BN-Umno-Jempol).

They noted that Salim's perfect attendance was well above the 75.8 percent average set by Umno MPs as a whole.

"A quick glance at his MyMP profile also reveals other positive trends. He asked 10 questions in those sessions, often clarifying figures and status of projects, resulting in one of the best Work Ethic scores on our entire site," wrote MyMP.

Upko’s perfect attendance

MyMP is a crowdsourcing initiative by the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights to monitor the performance of MPs.

Based on the study, MyMP said United Progressive Kinabalu Organisation (Upko), Muda, Amanah, DAP and Parti Bersatu Rakyat Sabah (PBRS) had the best average attendance rate.

Only Upko had perfect attendance. However, it should be noted that Upko only has one MP.

"Upko can be proud of their sole rep in Parliament. Muda also only has one representative, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, and he only missed one session in the last 84.

"Amanah and DAP can hold their heads up high, with more than 90 percent attendance from their 11 and 42 representatives respectively. That's a great team effort," wrote MyMP.

The two parties with the worst attendance are MIC and Star.

"On the other end of the spectrum, MIC and Star have very poor attendance from their sole MP reps, without other team members to cover for them.

"Bersatu though, doesn't have that excuse, with 67.9 percent attendance average, from their 29 MPs," wrote MyMP.