Nizar Judicial Declaration: Some Loose Ends

Technorati tags: Politics, Perak, Democracy, Malaysia

Rather than update the last posting, Walski thought that he’d do a brand new one. There are some loose-end kinda thoughts that he felt he should put keyboard-to-pixel before we move on to other things.

Despite the rejoicing of civil society over the announcement yesterday, Walski thinks that there still are certain uncertainties surrounding Perak. It’s not all cut-and-dried. Yet.

The loose-end thoughts that Walski has aren’t independent ones, by the way. Which means that the same damn things are on the minds of other folks as well. Namely, two of Walski’s A-List bloggers, Aisehman and KTemoc. They beat Walski in putting their thoughts down, but that’s okay – it’s all good.

Aisehman opines that since today’s judicial declaration means that AT NO TIME was Nizar not the Chief Minister, it means that:

• The sit-in under the Democracy Tree was a valid assembly sitting, and whatever resolutions that were passed
• Sivakumar is, therefore, still the speaker of the assembly, and therefore during the next assembly sitting will still have the right to bar any state assemblyperson from attending
• May 7th was a total waste of time, resources, and pepper spray (somebody else’s, of course)

KTemoc pretty much says the same thing, if not in so many words.

But the bottom line is, and this is where Walski is of the same opinion, Pakatan Rakyat, during the next sitting, will have a majority in the house.
(the coming moves, and more, in the full post)

And if he wanted to, Nizar could theoretically continue on as Chief Minister, despite his assurance that he would call for dissolution of the assembly. Then again, while theoretically possible, Walski personally doesn’t think he’d actually take that route. 

But let’s put all that aside for a moment.

BN’s response, so far, sans Zambry, has been to say that they will file an appeal today (via The Star), while PM Najib Abdul Razak, who’s also the president of UMNO, urged the people of Perak to remain calm while "the situation is resolved" (from the same article in The Star).

The Nut Graph elaborates (emphasis by myAsylum):

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak described the High Court decision on the Perak Menteri Besar issue today, which did not favour Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN), as not the end of the road for the party.

Najib, who is also the Umno president, said this was because there was still room for the party to think of appropriate measures to tackle the problem.

"This is not the end of the road. There is still room to think of appropriate action. My colleagues in the supreme council (MT) and I will think deeply on what is the best for Umno and the BN that we love," he said at the 63rd Umno anniversary celebration at the Putra World Trade Centre, here tonight.
(source: The Nut Graph)

Umm... “end of the road for the party”… A tad melodramatic, don’t you think? Unless, of course, Najib’s GPS is telling him something the rest of the world doesn’t know. Hmm… kind of intriguing that he should choose such phraseology.

And as far as “the problem” goes, all Walski will say is that it’s nice that Najib has the UMNO Supreme Council to help figure out how to clean up the mess that he started to begin with. Executive privilege, Walski supposes.

Oh well…

So now, the big “who wants to be a Slumdog Millionaire” question remains: what will the Perak palace’s response to Nizar’s request for dissolving the assembly be this time around?

Walski reckons that we’ll know soon enough. Incidentally, the Sultan of Perak is not in the country at the moment, but the Prince Regent has the authority to act on the Sultan’s behalf. This, more than any other, is an opportunity for the palace to redeem itself from negative public opinion. Hopefully, the palace realizes this, too.

Rest assured, whatever happens, Walski will be scanning the Twitter-waves today…