‘One more turncoat and it’s snap polls’
By Athi Shankar, Free Malaysia Today
ALOR STAR: Kedah PKR will back the dissolution of the state assembly in the event of a defection among Pakatan Rakyat state representatives the next time.
Kedah PKR election director Johari Abdul said the party state leadership had pledged full support to Menteri Besar Azizan Abdul Razak to hold a snap state election in such a political scenario.
He said PKR and Pakatan would not allow Umno and Barisan Nasional to keep enticing the state ruling coalition’s assemblymen to defect and become independent representatives.
“We can no longer allow Umno and BN to continue to undermine the state administration and manipulate the political composition in the assembly.
“There is time. This must be stop and can be stopped,” said Johari, the Sungai Petani parliamentarian.
In wake of the latest defection by Bakar Arang assemblyman Tan Wei Shu from PKR in mid-April, Azizan had told a Pakatan meeting that he would advise the Sultan to dissolve assembly and call for a snap election if there was a sign of another defection from Pakatan.
He had particularly stressed his intention to three remaining PKR representatives, Tan Joon Long @ Tan Chow Kang (Sidam), S Manikumar (Bukit Selambau) and Lim Soo Nee (Kulim), who are all state executive councillors in his administration.
It’s learnt PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim had been notified about this.
Johari, who is PKR supreme council member, insisted that Azizan’s stand was not a mere political threat but a clear warning to Umno and BN to drop the idea to usurp the state administration via the back door.
He said BN had been persistently wooing Pakatan representatives to seize control the Kedah government.
“We are aware BN won’t stop engineering defections until it captures the state government,” he said.
But, he said BN should know by now that it would not succeed in regaining the government through defections, ala Perak style.
