High Drama in the Perak Constitutional Crisis

That brings us to 7th May, which was the session to debate the motion of removal of Sivakumar. At the beginning of the session, Sivakumar ruled that the session would not convene until Zambry, his six executive councillors and the three independent assemblymen left the House. Chaos ensues. Soon, Zambry would simply read out the motion himself to have Sivakumar removed, and the Barisan assemblymen immediately support it. Sivakumar’s microphone is turned off, and the Barisan-friendly independent Hee Yit Fong takes over as she is deputy Speaker.  Subsquently, Ganesan is appointed Speaker and is given the Speaker’s robes.

The next motions to be passed by the 31 seat majority were “to change the membership of the three house committees”, which the Nut Graph notes that it was to install their own members into the committees, and to declare the tree assembly illegal. At about 11.30am, Barisan then proposed an “adjournment” of 1 hour, which was acceded to by both sides. PR candidates cross over to the BN side to heckle Ganesan into leaving the House. Ganesan declares an hour-long extension of the adjournment. All this while, Sivakumar remains seated in the speaker’s chair.

Around 2pm, Pakatan assemblymen attempt to block Ganesan from re-entering the House, but Barisan assemblymen are forcibly trying to remove Sivakumar. Pakatan assemblymen physically crowd around the speaker’s table in order to prevent him from being removed. Punches are thrown. He eventually was removed at 2.40pm by being dragged out with his chair by plainclothes policemen. A shouting match ensues over the emptied seat. At 2.50, Ganesan takes the speaker’s table amidst cries of protests from the Pakatan side.  Zambry motions for prayers to start and to allow the Perak State Regent, Raja Nazrin Shah to make his royal address (who was waiting since noon).

The state assembly quietens down for the royal address, and treats him with deference. Some order is restored. He makes no note of the prior political chaos. He finishes his address by 4pm and state assembly was adjourned indefinitely.

The police pre-emptively arrested several activists and assemblymen prior to the seating. Wong Chin Huat, was arrested on charges of sedition based on several of his articles, and his advocacy of the 1BlackMalaysia campaign, which was to wear black in protest of the illegitimate proceedings. The police also warned citizens not to wear black near the state assembly building, and several brave protestors were arrested as a result. Five members of Federal Parliament and another five members of the state assembly were also arrested, but were released the same day. The Nut Graph claims that 90 arrests were made. Wong Chin Huat was released the subsequent day.

The Malaysia Insider decry the loss of confidence in the judiciary in delivering a fair and acceptable verdict. They pointed out that the constitutional monarchy being not as impartial as their constitutional role as “Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin, Sultan Azlan Shah of Perak did the unthinkable — he asked Nizar to resign and installed BN as the new state government”. Finally, they condemned the high-handed role of the police which subverted democracy and representation by arbitrarily banning the wearing of black shirts. In another article, they also predict that the arbitrary use of police coercion would damage Barisan’s credibility in the long run — at least in opposition eyes, if not of the general public. Prominent human rights lawyer, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar questioned the legality of proceedings of the 7th May, as Hee could not procedurally take over from Sivakumar while he was still in the building, Barisan should not have called in the police but should have served a court order removing him, the new speaker must be sworn-in in a separate session, and that there was no formal convening of the session: all the proceedings were held prior to the regent’s speech which officially comes first. Many are also angry that if the Sultan had indeed allowed fresh elections to take place in February, the crisis would not have taken place. On the subsequent day, 200 lawyers protested against the police arrestts.

However, UMNO lawyers contend that the proceedings were legally correct. Zambry defends himself by saying that the tyranny of the minority shouldn’t rule over the majority — a clever subversion of the adage of the ”tyranny of the majority’. However, government and government supporters seem to portray opposition as uncouth, uncivilised sore losers in their measures to cling to power. Malay newspaper accounts said that the opposition leaders “forgot themselves” and could not accept the fact that they were no longer in majority. Khairy Jamaluddin, comments that “Our national image has been jeopardised by assemblymen who prefer anarchy”.

On the 11 May, a High Court verdict deciding on the legitimate Chief Minister of Perak will be delivered. However, the losing party will definitely file an appeal to the Appeals court.

*compiled from Wikipedia, Malaysiakini and the Nut Graph accounts.

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