Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house.

1 Australia
2 Canada
3 India
4 Malaysia
5 New Zealand
6 Singapore
7 United Kingdom

Australia

In Australia, the term Member of Parliament refers specifically to a member of the Australian House of Representatives, although in some jurisdictions (e.g. Queensland) it may also refer to a member of the State Parliament.

Canada

In Canada, the term Member of Parliament refers specifically to a member of the Canadian House of Commons.

India

In India, the term Member of Parliament refers to the Sansad or the Indian Parliament chambers of the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha MPs to the Lok Sabha are elected popularly by constentuencies in the Indian states and union territories, while MPs to the Rajya Sabha are elected by State legislatures.

Malaysia

The Malaysian Parliament is also modeled after the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and consists of two houses, known as the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) and Dewan Negara (Senate).

The members of the Dewan Rakyat are elected in general elections or by-elections, whereas the members of the Dewan Negara are appointed by the king, in recognition of outstanding service to their country, or chosen by the states. Each state appoints a number of senators proportionate to its size.

Currently, the Dewan Negara has 70 seats, and the Dewan Rakyat, 219. Of the 219 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, 199 are held by the ruling Barisan Nasional and 20 by opposition parties.

Memebers of Parliament are styled Yang Berhormat with the initials Y.B. appended prenominally. A prince who is a Member of Parliament is Yang Berhormat Mulia.

New Zealand

New Zealand has a single-chambered (unicameral) parliament. In New Zealand Member of Parliament is the term for a member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, although parliament technically consists of both the House and the Queen. The New Zealand House of Representatives normally has 120 MPs, elected every three years. There are 69 electorate (constituency) MPs, 7 of whom are elected by Māori who have chosen to vote in special Māori seats. The remaining 51 MPs are elected from party lists. The speaker of the house is Margaret Wilson.

Before 1951 New Zealand had a two-chambered (bicameral) parliament, and there were two designations — MHR (Member of the House of Representatives, the body which survives today) and MLC (Member of the Legislative Council).

Singapore

In Singapore, the Members of Parliament refers to either the elected members of the Parliament of Singapore, the appointed Non-Constituency Members of Parliament from the opposition, as well as the Nominated Members of Parliament, who may be appointed from members of the public who have no connection to any political party in Singapore.

United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom is divided into the House of Commons and the House of Lords; though it is often assumed that an MP is a member of Commons, they can be a member of either house. Nonetheless, the letters "MP" are appended as a post-nominal to an individual's name only if that person is a member of the House of Commons; that House currently has 646 members.

MPs in the House of Commons are elected in general elections and by-elections to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system of election, and remain MPs until Parliament is dissolved (parliaments can last up to five years). The members of the House of Lords are officially appointed by the Monarch, but the selection actually is done by the British Prime Minister.

There are several special members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, other government ministers, the Chief Whip of each party, Privy Counsellors, and the Speaker of the House.

Members of Parliament are technically forbidden to resign their seats. However, appointment to a "paid office under the Crown" disqualifies an MP from sitting in the Commons, and two nominally paid offices - the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead - exist to allow members to resign from the House. For more information, see the article Resignation from the British House of Commons.

See also: List of British MPs (alphabetically sorted, both former and current MPs), Lists of British MPs (by election), MPs elected in the UK general election, 2005, Number of British MPs (and how it has varied historically), UK topics

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