Perak Speaker calls emergency session next Tuesday

IPOH, Feb 27 — Malaysianinsider

Perak legislative Speaker V. Sivakumar has called for an emergency sitting of the state assembly next Tuesday in a move that could see the Barisan Nasional (BN) government voted out of power and further complicate the constitutional impasse.

Sivakumar is invoking the assembly’s standing orders 8 and 11 to call for the emergency sitting to vote on two motions in relation to the state’s constitutional impasse.

The two standing orders give him the powers to call for an emergency sitting of the assembly.

The first motion to be voted on will be for the assembly to reaffirm its support for Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin as the rightful mentri besar. The motion will be tabled by Titi Serong Pas assemblyman Khalil Idham Lim Abdullah.

If passed, the motion will contradict Sultan Azlan Shah’s decision to appoint BN’s Datuk Zambry Kadir as MB after rejecting Nizar’s request for the state assembly to be dissolved.

The second motion up for a vote will be to seek for dissolution of the state assembly and pave the way for fresh polls. The motion will be tabled by PKR assemblyman Chang Lih Kang.

If passed, this motion will throw up the question once again of whether the state ruler will even grant Nizar an audience as he now recognises Zambry as the MB.

Under the state constitution, the Sultan can use his discretion to decide whether to consent to dissolution of the state assembly.

Notices have been sent out to all assemblymen except for the mentri besar Datuk Zambry Kadir and the six BN state executive councillors. The seven BN members were recently suspended from the assembly for between 12 and 18 months.

Notices were also not sent to the three former Pakatan Rakyat (PR) assemblymen who are “friendly” to BN.

This means that if all PR assemblymen vote in favour, the two motions will be passed.

But Zambry has already stated he intends to attend any sitting of the assembly. This could turn the sitting into chaos as Sivakumar could order the BN man out of the assembly.