Monday, February 9, 2009

Back to Basics

Constitutional Law 101:

Perak State Constitution Article XVI(6): "If the Mentri Besar ceases to command the confidence of the majority of the Legislative Assembly, then unless at his request His Royal Highness dissolves the Legislative Assembly, he shall tender the resignation of the Executive Council".

Federal Constitution Article 43(4): "If the Prime Minister ceases to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the House of Representatives, then, unless at his request the Yang Dipertuan Agong dissolves Parliament, the Prime Minister shall tender the resignation of the Cabinet".

Clearly the onus to act on this situation is on the Mentri Besar or Perdana Menteri, and no one else. MB or the PM can 'request' the Sultan to dissolve the government, and only he has the executive power on this matter.

I am only an engineer, and I do not want to dwell too much on this legal issue. My experience with construction lawyers has taught me that in law, white is not necessarily white and black is not necessarily black, depending on the way you argue.

Let's move on to the next lesson on Mathematics 101:

Pakatan Rakyat garnered around 434,091 votes (or 51.5%) of the Perakians compared to 408,084 votes (or 48.5%) for BN.

By giving a mandate to BN, the majority has been denied its right under the so-called 'democracy' where the minority will end up governing the majority. Malaysia Boleh?

Next lesson is on Politics 101 (or Ethics 101):

I think the basic politics that we can learn from this fiasco is that a leader must be selected from the best in our society in term in intelligence (fathonah) and accountability (amanah), and not those who are ridden with all types of scandals and problems. Leadership is an amanah and should not be entrusted to any Tom, Dick and Harry. And it is a tragedy that a government has been brought down by an ex-postman, an ex-clerk and a pensioned soldier (askar pencen).

I think this is the latest 'Get-Rich-Quick' Scheme in town. Interested to join, for those who are devoid of ethics?


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