Who Is The Funniest MP In Parliament? MyMP Has The Answer
The results by MyMP are based on data from the Parliament Hansard dating as far back as 2018.
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The Parliament has been referred to as a “zoo” especially when members of Parliament (MPs) do not behave professionally during meetings.
This prompted Deputy Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Ramli Mohd Nor in February 2023 to remind MPs to observe decorum.
As proof to show how “wild” the Parliament could be, everyone can refer to the latest data released by Parliament watchdog MyMP today.
Based on the data, two MPs – Jelutong MP RSN Rayer and Arau MP Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim – are crowned the “most controversial MPs.”
The result showed that Rayer won a landslide victory in the July 2018 – October 2022 14th Dewan Rakyat sessions (post-GE14) and appeared in over 531 ‘riuh’ instances.
Meanwhile, Shahidan came in second at 391 ‘riuh’ instances. He was later proclaimed the victor in the December 2022 – June 2023 15th Dewan Rakyat sessions (post-GE15), while Rayer dropped to third place at 44 ‘riuh’ instances.
Pendang MP Datuk Awang Hashim bagged second place at 55 ‘riuh’ instances.
Despite being labelled as “boisterous,” Lau said both Shahidan and Rayer were effective and performing MPs based on MyMP data gathered on their attendance and questions asked.
Shahidan also claimed both titles for the funniest MP post-GE-14 and post-GE15 Dewan Rakyat sessions.
When asked if the MP’s status as an Opposition lawmaker correlated to the number of ruckus instances, Lau said it’s possible that these MPs tend to be louder than government backbenchers.
How did they get the data?
MyMP founder Lau Chak Onn said the tongue-in-cheek findings are based on an analytic result of years of data scrapping through the Parliament Hansard dating as far as 2018.
His small team uses the Python programming language to scrape data from the Hansards, which document every word said in Parliament.
The team searched for the keywords ‘dewan riuh’ and ‘dewan ketawa’ to identify instances that brought the house down and noted the last two names that occurred before the ruckuses.
New partnership, more data
On a separate note, Lau said MyMP is partnering with local think tank IDEAS to help develop their PANTAU KUASA project.
The project, initiated in 2022, compares a list of GLC directors with another list of Malaysian politicians before matching them to pinpoint suspected political appointments.
We’re really happy to contribute to this project, as what we’ve always wanted is to make political observation engaging. This list comparison fits very well with that end goal, and we believe our data skill sets really come in handy as well.
MyMP founder Lau Chak Onn
IDEAS Public Finance Unit manager Alissa Rode said she’s keen to see the findings on political appointments made during Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s government, which is slated to launch early next year.
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