BEWARE SELANGORIANS: Khalid can now do whatever deal he wishes without PKR, DAP catching him

KUALA LUMPUR — Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s sacking of six executive councillors (exco) from PKR and DAP yesterday was a shrewd manoeuvre by the embattled leader to one-up his opponents and tighten his grip on the Selangor mentri besar post, lawyers said.

Constitutional law experts following developments in the Selangor crisis noted that with his detractors removed from government, Khalid now has more power to exercise his will from within the state administration without being answerable to the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leadership.

Further complicating matters for PKR and DAP is the fact that Khalid had obtained the Selangor Sultan’s consent for the sacking, making his move legal and likely impossible to be challenged in any court of law, the observers said.

Shariah and constitutional lawyer Nizam Bashir explained that Article 53(7) of the Selangor Constitution stipulates that a member of the state executive council holds office at the pleasure of the state ruler.

This means that Khalid had acted within his legal means if he had truly obtained the Sultan’s go-ahead to fire the six PKR and DAP exco members, the lawyer said.

“Let’s look at it this way — there is someone at the helm who doesn’t seem to be getting the cooperation of members who are supposed to be subordinate to him.

“From a management perspective, this is the sensible thing to do,” Nizam told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

“From the legal perspective, he followed the law down to a T. So on both counts, you can’t find fault with him,” he added, referring to Khalid.

Late yesterday evening, Khalid announced he had sacked all six excos from PKR and DAP on grounds that they refused to cooperate with him as Selangor mentri besar.

He claimed the Selangor Sultan had given his consent on the matter, and that official letters were sent to five out of six state executive councillors as of yesterday.

Constitutional lawyer Syahredzan Johan noted that by sacking the six allegedly recalcitrant exco members, Khalid shifted all the leverage of a state government on his side as neither DAP and PKR have any representatives left in the state administration.

He pointed out that the Sultan typically acts on advice of the entire executive council and not just the mentri besar, which means exco members could, by means of a majority, present advice that may not necessarily be in accordance with what the mentri besar wants.

“But now that they have been sacked, that option is no longer there... so Khalid can basically not call for a sitting until November,” Syahredzan said, referring to the next scheduled state legislative assembly meeting.

Nizam agreed that Khalid has considerable leverage to determine the date of the next state assembly meeting, as it is the government of the day — which now comprises Khalid and the four remaining excos from PAS — who will advise the Sultan as to when to call the next meeting.

Nizam, however, warned that the besieged mentri besar does not have an ironclad defence against his detractors, if recent history is to be any measure.

Last week, PKR announced that they were getting their state lawmakers to sign statutory declarations to say they have lost confidence in Khalid — something that the mentri besar should seriously consider in his plans, the lawyer said.

“We have a precedent locally where statutory declarations were taken as a measure of whether a person is in support of whatever party... if the Perak precedent is followed, that could be one way to assess whether or not he has majority support,” he said, referring to the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis.

During the 2009 crisis, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lost control of the silver state after three defections and a two-year legal tussle that saw Perak end up in Barisan Nasional (BN) hands.

The Court of Appeal ruled that loss of confidence in the mentri besar can be determined by other means beyond a vote in the legislative assembly, such as the demonstration of support by 31 out of the 59 state lawmakers for BN. The ruling was upheld by the Federal Court. - Malay Mail