PUTRAJAYA: The country needs to go through another general election to ensure political stability and restore confidence in foreign investors, Umno Rembau member of parliament Khairy Jamaluddin said.
However, he said, the election should only be held after the country had recovered from the negative impacts of Covid-19.
The science, technology and innovation minister said no matter how many economic recovery plans the government came up with, the only way to ensure a full recovery was if investors were confident the government was stable.
"Without political stability, it doesn't matter what economic plans or programmes we have in place. Investors will say 'Malaysia is doing okay but your politics is very unstable as your government has less than a 10-man majority' (in Dewan Rakyat).
"And this could change by the day. Maybe today we have 10 (majority), tomorrow we could have 12 and next week we may only have five. We don't know.
"Political stability is extremely important and I believe that the best solution is to get a new mandate from the people," he said.
Perikatan Nasional currently holds 114 seats in the Dewan Rakyat out of the 222 parliamentary seats which gives the unofficial pact a three-majority upper hand in the Lower House.
Khairy said the general election should not be held before the announcement of the 2021 Budget and all initiatives under the government's Penjana stimulus package were delivered.
"I don't think now is the right time to do it because we are in the middle of the recovery process.
"When things are better, when (Covid-19) active cases have decreased further and we can enter the normalisation phase, then perhaps we can resolve the (political instability) issue."
Khairy said without snap polls, the people would continue to question the stability of the PN government.
Aside from that, he said, it would also cause further turmoil within Pakatan Harapan in its quest to decide and compromise on a name to be its prime ministerial candidate.
"PH is getting crazy. They are schizophrenic. I mean, one moment they are here and the next they are there. I think they will only be able to resolve their prime ministerial candidate issue after an election is held."
PH and its allies in the grouping dubbed "Pakatan Plus" are deadlocked over their choice of prime ministerial candidate, with PKR adamant that it would only accept its president, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
DAP, Parti Amanah Negara and Parti Warisan Negara, on the other hand, are pushing for Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister for six months before handing the reins over to Anwar.
Recently, DAP and Amanah sought to convince Anwar and his party to accept the deal by saying the agreed transition and timeline would be formalised in a written agreement.
Khairy described the deal "preposterous" as it would only lead to further political instability.
Responding to claims that PN had taken away the mandate given to PH in 2018 and that Umno and Barisan Nasional were responsible for PH's downfall, Khairy said it was the division within PH that had caused the breakup.
"BN didn't overthrow anybody because, in reality, PH committed suicide with Dr Mahathir's resignation and when several leaders left PH.
"Umno and BN had never, not even once, went around looking for ways to become the government again before the next general election."
When the PH government lost its majority in the Dewan Rakyat at the time, Khairy said based on the Federal Constitution, a government must be formed either by an MP who is able to secure a new majority in the House or by holding a general election.
"Muhyiddin (Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin) managed to provide the numbers to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, and we then formed the government.
"As far as I am concerned, there was no orchestrated coup by BN or Umno."