Attempt to dislodge Ganesan may be held up

By Shannon Teoh - The Malaysian Insider

V. Sivakumar faces an uphill task in his bid to regain the speaker's seat in the Perak legislative assembly.

KUALA LUMPUR, June 16 — V. Sivakumar may face an obstacle in a bid to regain the speaker's seat in the Perak legislative assembly tomorrow.

The Ipoh High Court is to hear the matter in chambers tomorrow but the fact that respondent Datuk R. Ganesan has no named counsel or submitted any affidavit may result in the case being postponed.

Further, it appears that a judge from Kuala Lumpur is to be sent up to take over the case.

Sivakumar, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) appointed speaker of the Perak state assembly, filed the suit at the Ipoh High Court on May 15 against Ganesan to prevent him from acting as speaker and for damages for injury and embarrassment during the chaotic May 7 sitting where the latter claims he rightfully replaced Sivakumar.

Even though Sivakumar's suit refuses to acknowledge that at any material time he was not the speaker, Ganesan will be expected to argue that the manhandling of Sivakumar was done in his capacity as speaker after the Tronoh assemblyman refused to leave his seat.

As such, the court will inevitably have to answer the question of who is the legitimate speaker.

Leong Cheok Keng, part of PR's legal team handling cases pertaining to the Perak crisis, told The Malaysian Insider that as of this afternoon, they have yet to be informed of any response by Ganesan or a representative of his.

"Our lead counsel also received a letter this morning saying that a judge from KL will preside over this case, but I am not sure who it is," he added

The position of speaker is crucial as he controls assembly proceedings and for Barisan Nasional (BN), it could mean convening an assembly to pass a vote of no confidence in Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin, rendering the expected appeal to the Federal Court over who is the legitimate mentri besar academic.

But if PR wins, then it would have achieved one of two decisive conclusions. It means the May 7 assembly was never called into session by Sivakumar.

So unless the controversial "tree assembly" of March 3 is recognised, no sitting has been called for over six months, which is prohibited by the state constitution and may render the current assembly unconstitutional, forcing its dissolution and fresh polls which PR has been calling for since the Feb 5 takeover by BN.

If the "tree assembly" is valid, it would reinstall Nizar as mentri besar and affirm suspensions of his rival Datuk Seri Zambry Abd Kadir and his six exco, giving PR the majority in a future sitting of the assembly.