It Never Was A Constitutional Crisis, You Lose Abdullah!

Remember this frontpage news above? Who wouldn't? Within days, it has become a famous last word that when expressed, it was delivered with such prime ministerial brouhaha. Subsequently, he said with gusto that dispute with the Terengganu Sultan, his second palatial dispute after the General Election, could end up into a constitutional crisis.

Huh! Another attempt to copy-cat Dr Mahathir. What now? Get Kalimullah and Annuar Zaini to spin the history books on the two constitutional crisis during Mahathir's time and turn this bravado into a bigger costitutional crisis?

Tengku Razaleigh responded to tell that it is administrative and not constitutional in nature. Another typical problem of Abdullah being presumptous and missing the fine print.

A friend had intercept an SMS from the Forth Floor boys and forwarded to me. It clearly demonstrated how the wet-behind-their-ears are Pak Lah's advisers. It reads as below:

“I am deeply saddened today that our Constitution was usurped by a monarch who believes in he has absolute discretion, when it is our Constitution that is the supreme law of the land. PM made the right decision to agree to Ahmad Said as MB simply because he didn’t want to lose Terengganu. Had he asked for the matter to be taken to special court, the monarch would have dissolved the assembly and we risk having a state election, with the Terengganu people’s sentiments supporting their Ruler without any care for the law. Politically PM had no choice but what the monarch did today has set a dangerous precedent which means Malaysia is no more a Constitutional Monarchy but is sliding towards absolute monarchy, where the will of the people is subverted the desires of the Rulers. Ampun rakyatku.”

Oh, those poor geniuses.

Lets hear what Dr Mahathir had written on The Sun today, March 29th below to educate those bogus geniuses:

Role of Rulers in picking Menteri Besar

A Concerned Malaysian has expressed his worry over the role being played by Sultans in the appointment of the Menteri Besar. His Royal Highnesses have clearly refused to take the advice of the Chief Minister i.e. the Prime Minister. Instead they have chosen on their own a member of the state legislature to head the Government.

We hear a lot of opinions on the propriety of the action by the Sultan. Some say he has the right to do this while others point out that as a constitutional ruler he could not do this.

The Constitution says that the Ruler or Head of State must choose the elected member who enjoys the support of the majority of members in the legislative body to be the Prime Minister or the Menteri Besar. Subject to this provision the Ruler it is who chooses and appoints the Prime Minister or Menteri Besar.

The Prime Minister, as Prime Minister has no role in the choice of the State Menteri Besar or Ketua Menteri. His naming of candidate who should be the Menteri Besar is purely a party matter. Obviously if the State is captured by the Opposition Party he cannot name the candidate.

However if the Ruler chooses someone who does not enjoy majority support he could be deposed at a sitting of the legislative body through a vote of “no confidence”.

After that another member can be appointed by the Ruler to take his place. But if for some reason there is no other candidate or the candidate with majority support is considered unsuitable by the Ruler, a new Government cannot be formed. The Ruler may then dissolve the legislative body and a new election may be held.

This new election may lead to the same impasse. The Ruler may not like the member with majority support.

However, it should be noted that this kind of thing had never happened during the premiership of the four previous Prime Ministers. Concerned Malaysians should wonder why.

Is it just that the particular Ruler is being difficult, unwilling to accept the principles of democracy, wanting to return to feudalism and the absolute authority of the monarch?

I do not think so. There must be a reason why the Ruler refuses to accept the candidate named by the party. But the Ruler chooses not to reveal the reasons and indulge in public debates. He merely expresses his displeasure by refusing to do what normally the Rulers would do. Concerned Malaysians must ask what has the particular candidate done which is so wrong that it incurs the displeasure of the Ruler.

There are lots of talks in the town. Terengganu is blessed with petroleum deposits. It should get 5% of the total earning from oil production. The Federal Government; fearing the previous PAS Government might use this money wrongly had withheld payment.

But when the Barisan Nasional regained Terengganu the money, now called “Wang Ehsan”, was lavishly spent by the Federal Government on Terengganu. It is not a small sum. Over these years “Wang Ehsan” totaled several billions.

We know that since the Barisan Nasional regained Terengganu in 2004 all kinds of projects have been developed in Terengganu. This include The Monsoon Cup, luxury housing for sale to foreigners, Crystal Mosque and theme park, university etc etc. Some of these projects are very good but many are totally unnecessary and wasteful.

But what the Terengganu people are saying is that all these mega projects costing billions of Ringgit have been contracted out to people outside Terengganu. Terengganu contractors got practically nothing.

But additionally they say the contracts all went to one person and they are suspicious that behind this person are members of the first family. The rumors also say that the previous Menteri Besar was responsible for these things happening and of course they think that he might have benefite financially. The rumors went on to say that the Prime Minister might have influenced the Menteri Besar into doing wrong things.
These are all rumors. It will be quite impossible to prove anything as the perpetrators are skilled in hiding themselves.

This is not good for a Government keen to abolish corruption and be transparent. To clear its name an investigation should be made.

But the public is leery of investigations by Government agencies and departments. Even Royal Commissions are not highly regarded. The people believe, not true of course, that the Government has been interfering with the work of the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Police and the Attorney General’s Chambers. The say this is borne out by the results of investigations by these agencies.

When a Deputy Minister was accused of accepting money for the release of a detainee, the Attorney General said there was no case because the detainee said he did not give any money to the Deputy Minister. It is so easy. If you have a case involving someone all the enforcement agencies need to do is to ask him whether he was involved. If he says “no” than there is no case.

For some reason judges are finding that people accused of murder are not guilty because of insufficient evidence by the police. Yet people who are totally not involved in a case, who were not accused of any misdeeds and who did not appear in court at all and been given a hearing are found guilty and publicly condemned.

The public cannot be blamed for not having faith in Government agencies doing investigations. The public cannot be blamed for suspecting cover-ups by the Government or worse still the Government may be using these enforcement agencies to threaten people.

To clear its good name the Government should get credible foreign agencies to do the investigations. Of course they must be given full access to the documents etc.

Now my detractors are going to say I did worse things when I was Prime Minister. Well if that is so let us have the foreign agencies investigate me also. I am aware that people are looking into possible misdeeds by me during my 22 years so as to threaten me and ask me to shut up. So far they have not found anything.

Not only have I not taken anything that was not due to me while I was Prime Minister but I have given back to the Government and the people everything that I had received as gifts during my tenure of office. The Government had offered me land in Kedah and Langkawi and I had refused to accept. I have a 5-acre piece of land in Putrajaya which I paid for even though the Government was offering it to me free.

Unless there is a frame-up I think there should be nothing to pin on me. Even other accusations against me including the dismissal of judges were not my doing and I do not feel obliged to apologise. Ask the Tribunal to apologise.

The person asking that the Government should apologise for what happened to Tun Salleh Abbas may have forgotten that as President of the Muslim Lawyers Association, he fully supported the action that was taken. He castigated the Bar Council for condemning Tun Hamid Omar over the dismissal of judges. Now he wants to be more correct than correct.

I wonder why.

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad

In his meeting with the Agong, Abdullah was asked about the status of the Wang Ehsan. Now Idris Jusoh is hoping to get attendance to seek foregiveness. He will have to answer and his got his face to save. Otherwise, lets not discount the possibility of having his Datokship stripped in disgrace.

This is a lesson for future leaders. Abdullah lost becasue he was did not acknowledge the Gelombang Kuning march on November 11th, 2007. It is not just a Bersih march but forgotten what the colour yellow signify.

He didn't get proper advise and over relied on inexperianced boys. Now, do they look like real novice.

Why should Abdullah continue to maintain these boys. If he wants to save himself from further onslaught or the least bring some saving grace, he'd better clear off these boys from the Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Khazanah Nasional and GLC offices.

Bring in real men with substance. Better still, we need a Prime Minister of substance.

While BN lost 5 + 1 states, Abdullah lost 5 + 1 + 2 states. Remove Sarawak and Perlis is just a district, how many state does he control? Why fear him any more?