The 12th Malaysian Parliament is the last meeting of the legislative branch of the government of Malaysia, the Parliament, comprising the directly elected lower house, the Dewan Rakyat, and the appointed upper house, the Dewan Negara. It met for the first time at the Malaysian Houses of Parliament on 28 April 2008 and met for the last time on 29 November 2012. The King then dissolved the Parliament on 3 April 2013. The dissolution was announced by the Prime Minister Najib Razak after it consented by the King.
The 12th Parliament was the first to meet where the governing Barisan Nasional coalition does not have a 2/3 supermajority in the Dewan Rakyat necessary to amend the Constitution. In the 2008 general election, opposition parties won a record 82 of the 222 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, quadrupling the share they held previously. On 1 April, leaders from Parti Keadilan Rakyat, the Democratic Action Party and PAS announced the formation of the Pakatan Rakyat, a coalition comprising the three main opposition parties in Parliament. They also announced that Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of PKR, would be the new Leader of the Opposition, making her the first woman to assume the post. The 12th Parliament was also the first to have regular live broadcasts of Dewan Rakyat debates on national public television, and saw the first instance of a supply bill approved by division instead of a voice vote. In June 2008, the two members of parliament from the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP, a BN component party) announced they would be filing a motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister, a first in Malaysian Parliamentary history.
Dates of sessions
Events
The 12th Parliament set a number of firsts in Malaysian history, in addition to being the first where the Barisan Nasional government sat without its customary 2/3 majority in the Dewan Rakyat. New Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek announced that 30 minutes of each question time would be broadcast live on public television, with the possibility of a complete broadcast if demand was sufficient. Wan Azizah became the first woman leader of the opposition, with 24 women MPs total, 10 from the opposition ranks. Meanwhile, for the first time two chief ministers of opposition states—Lim Guan Eng of Penang and Khalid Ibrahim of Selangor—would also sit as members of the Dewan Rakyat. A record number of Indian Malaysians, 10, sit in the Dewan Rakyat, while 99 of the 222 members of the Dewan Rakyat are first-time MPs. The Speaker and all his deputies, for the first time, hailed from East Malaysia.
First sitting
The election of the Deputy Speakers sparked a minor controversy, as Lim Kit Siang of the opposition Democratic Action Party nominated Tan Seng Giaw for one of the two posts. The election of the Speaker had been unanimous, as no other candidates were nominated. Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar received 157 votes, while Ronald Kiandee obtained 140 votes. Tan came in third with 81 votes.
After the MPs were sworn in on the first day of the first session of the Dewan Rakyat, all except Opposition Leader Wan Azizah received personal invitations for them and their spouses to attend the official opening of Parliament by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Mizan Zainal Abidin the next day. Wan Azizah demanded an explanation as to why she only received a letter, and why her husband Anwar Ibrahim, a controversial former Deputy Prime Minister and now the de facto leader of Pakatan Rakyat, was not officially invited to attend the ceremony. They later received an official invitation; Anwar's attendance the following day was the first time he had been in the Houses of Parliament since his sacking in 1998.