Friday, March 05, 2010

Sivakumar to issue Perak assembly notices next week


Tronoh assemblyman V. Sivakumar, who still claims to be the rightful Perak state speaker, will issue his own notices next week to convene the next state assembly sitting.

The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) speaker’s notice is expected to coincide with that of rival speaker Datuk R. Ganesan who called for a March 30 sitting.

His move is to allow Perak PR representatives to attend the sitting, which was already called by Ganesan earlier this week, without actually recognising the latter as the state’s rightful Speaker.

Sivakumar confirmed today that he would send out his own assembly notices. after he attended a meeting with PR leaders and elected representatives in Ipoh.

“Next week,” he replied to The Malaysian Insider via text message when asked when the notices would be delivered.

To convene a sitting, notices have to be sent out 14 days before its commencement.

The Malaysian Insider understands however that a majority of the Perak state assemblymen had voiced strong disagreement over the decision for the coalition to continue its disregard for Ganesan.

One assemblyman expressed dissatisfaction that a number of top leaders in the coalition still insisted on sticking to this stand despite having made a promise to become a strong opposition.

“I understand that we cannot just go back on our principles, especially when we have been fighting so hard all this time. But something has to be done, we cannot go on playing this game,” said the assemblyman.

The assemblyman noted that most of the elected representatives were of the same view.

“We are all tired,” he said.

He added that although Sivakumar would be sending out the notices, the assembly would still be presided over by Ganesan.

In light of this, PR representatives would either have to resort to organising another mini-assembly within the House, or adhere to Ganesan’s orders.

“Our only problem here now is how to concede to Ganesan without actually conceding to him,” he said.

He noted that a decision was yet to be reached but expressed confidence that the leaders would decide on conceding for the sake of the people.

After the Feb 9 ruling in Federal Court that Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir was the rightful mentri besar instead of PAS’ Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, the Perak PR pledged it would cooperate with the government and work as a strong opposition.

It however maintained that Ganesan was not the rightful Speaker for two reasons — his appointment during the tumultuous May 7 assembly last year was made before the Perak Regent had declared the sitting open and that his failure to resign as a practising lawyer three months after his “appointment” was in violation of Article 36A of the Perak Constitution.

When contacted, former senior state executive councillor Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham reiterated this fact and said that if the Perak Sultan gave Ganesan recognition as the Speaker, then a bad precedent had been set.

“Ganesan was voted in before the commencement of the sitting at the time. If this is permitted, then the role of the royal institution has been reduced to a point that it is no longer necessary for it to open an assembly for the sitting to be legal,” he said.

courtesy of Malaysian Insider

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