KUALA LUMPUR, 28 Oct 2009: The donning of the speaker’s robe by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Perak State Assembly Speaker V Sivakumar during the break of the assembly sitting today is a clear act of threachery against the sultan of Perak, according to Defence Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamid.
He said this could not be accepted, and that Sivakumar, the assemblyperson for Tronoh, did not respect the laws of the state.
“Any Perakian or state assembly[person] who wants to hold a meeting in the name of the majority, or in any other circumstance, has to acknowledge that the law gives power to the sultan to recognise that; so it is clear that Sivakumar has committed treachery towards the sultan of Perak.
“I think we cannot tolerate any more the actions of Sivakumar and his cronies,” he told reporters in the Parliament lobby here today.
He said the PR had to respect the democratic principles practised in the country that say the majority forms a government.
During the one-hour break of the state assembly to approve the 2010 state budget, PR members, who had remained outside the House, entered and started their meeting. The former speaker, Sivakumar, began the meeting with the doa.
Buntong assembly A Sivasubramanian of the DAP asked the Barisan Nasional (BN) Speaker Datuk R Ganesan to leave the speaker’s seat, claiming he was not qualified to occupy the chair as he continued to practise law three months after having been appointed the speaker.
Ganesan remained in his seat throughout the PR meeting, while the BN ignored the proceedings and conversed among themselves.
Aside from that, Zahid said the discussions between Umno and PAS need not continue in the name of forming a unity government. Instead, there should be discussions in an informal manner based on a common-interest agenda.
“PAS is being split, there are some who agree and some who don’t about a coalition government. The best way is for us to sit and discuss how to come out of the economic slump, how to unite the people,” he said. — Bernama
See also: Shameful behaviour in Perak
Michael says
“…. claiming he was not qualified to occupy the chair as he continued to practise law three months after having been appointed the speaker.”
Is this true? How interesting … could TNG explore more into this?
Perakian says
It is the will of Perakians!
Gopal Raj Kumar says
Whoever wrote this article has no idea of the law. The sultan, like any other individual or institution, is subject to the law and is not above it.
Treachery is not an act of passive defiance but that of open perfidy like the writings of former justice NH Chan in his bits of prose and thesis on the dismissal in Perak.
Merah Silu says
The Malay [Malaysians] respect their sultan. If the Indian and Chinese [Malaysians] do not respect the sultan, then it is their problem. That is why we need to strengthen the constitution and the status of the bumiputera […]