All is not quiet on the Selangor front
Hazlan Zakaria, The Ant Daily
What was supposed to be a rubber stamp weekend in its ongoing congress to further affirm PKR’s desire to see president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail on the Selangor MB’s chair took a turn for the less than desirable if reports from a news portal claiming that PAS is once again withholding their support for her to ascend the much sought after post is true.
The Malaysian Insider today quoted unnamed PAS insiders as saying that the Islamic party will be withholding any signing of support letters for Wan Azizah from its remaining 13 assemblypersons, minus the two who already broke party ranks and signed such documents.
Apparently the Islamic party needed to re-consult its central working committee again due to PKR’s stubborn insistence that only Wan Azizah’s name will be presented to the Selangor Sultan as Pakatan MB candidate.
This despite PAS wanting an additional name, PKR deputy president Azmin Ali, as a backup candidate in case Wan Azizah is rejected by the palace. That decision itself was made after alleged news of rumbling in the palace that the PKR president’s name will not be accepted.
Indeed even in PKR, rumblings of agreement to the PAS alternative plan were heard as factions close to Azmin intoned their support. Azmin himself has long sought after the post as he had claimed previously that it was promised to him. It is widely believed that the outright battle between Azmin and Khalid’s supporters stemmed from this conundrum.
In the last consensus meeting between the three Pakatan allies, PKR insisted on Wan Azizah and their congenial partner DAP went along with the party. PAS presumably had to agree to the matter on point being outnumbered and outvoted if not in real consensus.
However, if news of the PAS holdover is true, then it seems the Islamic party is not going to just lie down and go along with a decision they do not agree with and it was not a real consensus.
With the sultan reportedly due back from overseas this weekend and meeting Selangor MB Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim on Monday next week, the impetus for the imbroglio will soon perhaps increase, though to roll in which way is anybody’s guess.
Khalid still has the ball in his court constitutionally speaking as he can insist on a vote of no confidence in the House to unseat him. And he can still advise the sultan to dissolve the state assembly.
And unless an emergency sitting of the state assembly is somehow contrived by Pakatan, no motion of no confidence can be tabled until budget seating in November.
Even PAS’ former Perak MB Nizar Jamaluddin said that settling it in the assembly is the best way, perhaps to avoid Pakatan being seen to be doing what the BN did to him to wrest away Perak from Pakatan in 2009. Though NIzar recommended an emergency sitting be scheduled as soon as possible to resolve this.
In the Perak crisis, BN was said to have plied pressure on the sultan to immediately accept its petition that Nizar has lost majority support simpy via petition signed by assemblypersons from the BN and the Pakatan turncoat independents they have gotten sway over, instead of going to the assembly for a vote of no confidence or a dissolution as Pakatan was asking for that time.
Some are saying that the situation is now in reverse.
Whatever the case, PKR is actively doling out preemptive strikes to try and perhaps put pressure and nullify Khalid and the sultan’s constitutional options via resident PKR constitutional expert Abdul Aziz Bari who is using his expert knowledge of the matter to throw virtual spanners in any other way to solve the imbroglio but by Khalid stepping down and the sultan immediately appointing Wan Azizah and only Wan Azizah as his successor.
Aziz Bari is insisting that only Wan Azizah’s name needs to be tendered to the sultan and any other name given is opening the door for palace interference in politics, something he said the sultan should be above of like his Commonwealth counterparts.
He also contended that Khalid has no more right to hold the post and call for dissolution is not the right thing to do, as only his immediate resignation would do.
While the supposed PAS backtrack is source based for now, it cannot be verified if it is true. But if it is true, it would mean that either PAS really do not want to see Wan Azizah as MB or perhaps it is simply the party following party guidelines as it must consult with the central committee to the change in their last agreed upon decision to name both Wan Azizah and Azmin.
Though this is politics and all is fair as in love and war, it is also possible that PAS is holding out to get more concessions from PKR and DAP before it goes along with their plans for Selangor. After all, one wonders what concessions they have gotten from their last u-turn on the matter.
With PKR seemingly more desperate to see Wan Azizah as Selangor MB before the budget sitting to perhaps spend the billions she told the PKR congress today is better spend than kept, PAS probably can name a prince’s ransom for their support.
