Sunday, March 16, 2008

STATUS, POWER AND MONEY

Hantu Laut

A new crisis has emerged in Perlis and this time in the BN camp. It is reminiscent of the power grab in Sabah in 1985 when both Pairin and Mustapha claimed position of the chief minister. The rightful person was Joseph Pairin whose party has obtained 25 seats to get a simple majority.Pasok obtained 1 seat and aligned with Pairin's PBS. His opponents USNO obtained 16 and Berjaya 6 seats which was not sufficient to form a coalition government.

Contrary to democratic process and convention the TYT (Governor) sworn in Mustapha as chief minister. A legal tussle ensued and Pairin won the case and was installed as chief minister.

The Perlis crisis has some similarity to the Sabah episode as the Raja of Perlis has acted on his own and outside the boundary of democratic conventions.Constitutional monarch is suppose to bless and validate appointments upon the advice of the prime minister and not to act on their own.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi may have a new crisis on hand. Some of the rulers may not be with him. The Raja of Perlis must have good reasons to reject his choice of Shahidan as menteri besar.

Knowing there is likely to be a crisis Abdullah should have had an audience with the Raja before he decides on the candidate for menteri besar and avoid the embarrassment of a royal spite.

Sahidan who was initially dropped from the PM's list was back on the list after some threats and bullying tactics. It was also rumoured that BN would have lost Perlis if Shahidan had been in his good book. On why he brought back Shahidan as MB only he would know.

The Raja of Perlis choice Md Isa Sabu seems more qualified than Sahidan.

Instead of closing ranks to save the party from going to the dogs, it is still "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost" and the nation takes a backseat.The jockeying for positions is intense and dirty.

It's all about status, power and money.

Also read here

Sultan Trengganu next to snub PM.Read here....

1 comment:

Monsterball said...

Perhaps the implosion of UMNO has begun.
I doubt if UMNO is capable of reforming itself in an orderly fashion. UMNO has largely become a grubby money distribution machine. When the money stops flowing or there's a bottleneck (5 states out of their dirty hands now ?) the machine will start to eat itself.

Who knows ? In 6 months, UMNO and BN may no longer be in control of Parliament.

But that creates new fears on my part.Anwar Ibrahim is a good counterbalance to Barisan's power. But Anwar Ibrahim as PM ? No..still many unanswered questions about his character..