Thursday, February 5, 2009

Anwar: Don't Cut Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face

Hantu Laut

Pakatan is planning a mammoth rally if the Sultan of Perak does not agree to the dissolution of the Perak state assembly ? Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan may be making a big mistake here if they think the Sultan is going to take lightly to this kind of intimidation of the palace.

It is the process of democracy. No menteri besar and his government can stand if he has lost command of majority confidence of the members of the house.As there are alternative entity that have the confidence of the majority of the members a fresh mandate is not necessary.A fresh mandate is only necessary when there is chaos and no clear alternative that enjoy majority support to be menteri besar and to form a government.Whether Pakatan likes it or not that's what the constitution prescribed.You don't dissolve the whole assembly just because the majority has lost confidence in the menteri besar.


To demonstrate is to show disrespect for the Sultan and surely looking for trouble.Let's hope Anwar uses his good judgement.The PKR and Pakatan people should accept the outcome with decorum.

Sultan Azlan Shah is a good sultan and well-versed with the law. He was a former Lord President and should know his decision would be in accordance with the state and federal constitutions. That's why he can't simply give the dissolution of the assembly to the Menteri Besar when he met him, he has to look at other considerations ,he has to hear what the other side has in store, whether they have the majority support to form the government.

The sultan has the power to appoint anyone as menteri besar whom he thinks has the command of the majority support of the members of the house. That person needs not necessarily must come from the BN. All he needs is the majority support of the members of the house.


Should the Sultan, in his good judgement, thinks no one command the majority support and confidence of the members or there exists a stalemate than he can proceed to dissolve the assembly.

I don't have to quote the relevent section of the Perak state constitution as most of the states have quite similar contents and similar to Article 43 (2) (a) of the Federal Constitution.

No menteri besar, no political party and no demonstration can influence the Sultan's decision, he is guided by the constitution.

The biggest problem with PKR was its choices of elected representatives both states and parliament. It was in such a hurry to fill up nominations for candidates in the March 2008 Elections no filtering and thorough screening of candidates were done and the party is now landed with a motley crew of riff-raff, slime ball and soldiers of fortune. PAS and DAP seem to have less of this kind of problems.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

HL,

You are right. despite my partiality to the "cause" of the Pakatan Rakyat, having a demonstration will be the wrong thing to do.
HRH the Sultan of Perak & his son are both highly respected, highly intelligent, well liked & have always shown that they make the "correct" choices.
As such, I agree that we must not only allow HRH to make the right decision, but we muct also respect HRH's decision.
Having said that, I would be highly disappointed if HRH allows these "kataks" to stay on as Assemblymen for Perak! They should resign. I would also be highly disappointed if HRH allows the BN to take over the Perak State Govt., for that would show that HRH regards "kataking" as a legitimate!
In the mean time no one in Government is too bothered about the state of the Malaysian Economy (oh dear I must be delusional because Najib has said that we are fine right?!).

Anonymous said...

The Sultan is sanctioning corruption and deceit but the rakyat must accept. Have you forgotten "Raja yang adil disembah, raja yang zalim disanggah". Do you think the Malays do not take this proverb seriously when it comes to one of the most revered institution in Malay culture.