By Clara Chooi - The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 — Perak’s Pakatan Rakyat 28 assemblymen will not comply with the notice for the March 30 state assembly meeting sent out by Datuk R. Ganesan as they do not recognise him as the state speaker,
This decision comes in spite of their promise to act as a strong opposition following the Feb 9 Federal Court ruling that Barisan Nasional’s Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir is the rightful Perak Mentri Besar.
Former mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin told The Malaysian Insider this morning that while he respected his ouster as the rightful state chief, Pakatan still maintained that Ganesan was not the rightful Speaker of the House.
“He is just an alien from the jungles of Sungkai,” he said, referring to the former Sungkai assemblyman.
Nizar added in view of this, Pakatan representatives would not attend the assembly sitting unless it was called by DAP’s V. Sivakumar.
“We will otherwise not comply with any instruction given by Ganesan. If we were to be present in this assembly sitting, it would only be if we receive assembly notices from sivakumar and not Ganesan,” he insisted.
Nizar explained their decison was due to Ganesan’s violation of Article 36A of the Perak Constitution by failing to resign as a practising lawyer after three months of his appointment as the Speaker.
Sivakumar concurred this but said that no decision had been made as yet on whether he would be sending out notices of his own.
He admitted that the Pakatan are presently caught in a Catch-22 situation if they were to issue their own notices of assembly, the sitting would be yet manother chaotic one and look as if the Pakatan was reneging on its promise to play nice.
On the other hand, if they attend the assembly without issuing a notice of their own, it could mean conceding to Ganesan as the Speaker.
“We will make our decision soon. But yes, we still maintain that Ganesan is not the Speaker,” he said.
Notices had been sent out to all assemblymen yesterday, informing them that the next assembly sitting would convened on March 30.
Meanwhile, Perak DAP chief Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham said that the most important thing now was for the High Court to quickly give a date to hear Sivakumar’s suit against the Election Commission (EC) for failing to hold by-elections in three constituencies in Perak last year —
Changkat Jering, Behrang and Jelapang.
On Oct 22 last year, High Court Justice Lau Bee Lan granted leave to Sivakumar, three Pakatan assemblymen and three voters to challenge the EC’s decision, on grounds that they had a prima facie case against the respondent.
The suit called for the EC to hold the by-elections for the assemblymen for the three constituencies — Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi, Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu and Hee Yit Foong — as they had submitted resignation letters to the then rightful Speaker, Sivakumar.
“The decision by Justice Lau was made four months ago and there is still no hearing date. This is obviously very biased of the courts,” Ngeh told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.
He added that the case was important to the Pakatan for if the courts decide to compel the EC to hold by-elections in the three constituencies, it would mean that the appointment of Ganesan during the May 7 sitting last year was invalid.
“It was Hee who took over proceedings as the Deputy Speaker of the House at the time but if she is no longer an assemblyman, then it means she should not have even been inside the House at the time,” said Ngeh.
Ngeh also said that on the possibility of Pakatan appointing an opposition leader for the assembly, he would concede the post to Nizar.
He agreed that by convention, the post would be given to the party holding the most number of sits in the assembly.
“But we in Perak Pakatan are very close so we do not think that way. I think Nizar is fully capable,” he said.
Nizar, however, is of the position that a DAP assemblyman should hold the position as they hold more seats.
The DAP has 17 seats while PAS has six and PKR has five. The Perak assembly has 59 state seats.
Both Pakatan and Barisan have 28 seats while the remaining three are three Barisan-friendly Independents.
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