2009 Perak Constitutional Crisis
In July 2008, former Perak MB Datuk Seri DiRaja Tajol Rosli Mohd. Ghazali claimed that the Pakatan Rakyat state government in Perak will fall on 31 August 2008 - Malaysia's Independence day through defections to Barisan Nasional from the PR camp - a clear corruption of PR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's 16 September 2008 plan to engineer mass defections of BN MPs from Sabah and Sarawak to form the new federal government. Nizar dismissed Tajol's claims and remarked "Who is he (Tajol) to predict the future?".
On 25 January 2009, BN's MLA from the Bota constituency, Datuk Nasarudin Hashim announced his defection from UMNO, a BN component party, to PKR, the second largest party in Nizar's Perak PR coalition. Nasarudin said that his decision was fully supported by his constituents and reaffirmed that no monetary award was offered to him by PR. Nizar and Anwar supported and welcomed Nasarudin into the PR coalition and Anwar claimed more BN MLAs were going to defect to PR a few days later. Nizar then claimed that three more MLAs from UMNO would defect to PR After Nasarudin's resignation from UMNO, Perak UMNO chief and former MB Tajol Rosli resigned as Perak BN chairman and Perak UMNO chief, taking responsibility for the defection of Nasarudin. Soon after, UMNO Malaysia Deputy President, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister took over as Perak UMNO Chairman and Perak BN Chairman from Tajol Rosli.
Crossover of Nasarudin and three other Perak assemblymen from PR, and effectively and controversially ended the PR majority government. The new Perak government, under Datuk Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir, swore in some executive councillors, but Nizar refused to bow down, and continued his daily routines. The speaker of the assembly, V. Sivakumar then suspended all BN executive councillors for "contempt of assembly" after a complaint by one assemblyman.
On 11 May 2009, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that the Sultan could not constitutionally remove Nizar from office, and that Nizar had always been the rightful Menteri Besar. Nizar announced his intention to immediately meet with the Sultan to request dissolution of the state assembly, while Zambry Abdul Kadir, the intended Barisan Menteri Besar, stated he would vacate the state secretariat as soon as possible. However, Nizar ultimately lost the legal proceedings when, in February 2010, the Federal Court ruled Zambry to be the lawful Menteri Besar.
Read more about this topic: Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin
Famous quotes containing the word crisis:
“Computerization brings about an essential change in the way the worker can know the world and, with it, a crisis of confidence in the possibility of certain knowledge.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)