Excos violate oath of loyalty

As the Americans say, you just can't fight city hall.

COMMENT

This is beginning to look like a scene from the Gaza conflict. You fire a rocket at me and hit one of us and I fire back one at you and hit six of yours. Well, five actually, because one of the targets is overseas and escaped the rocket but will most likely receive hers once she returns to Malaysia—unless she has broken ranks with her party.

I am talking about five of the six PKR and DAP Exco members whom Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim sacked in response to his sacking from the party.

It is not actually a revenge counter-attack as payback for his sacking as such. It is more what they said. The three PKR and three DAP Exco members said they would not serve what is now an independent Menteri Besar and would instead only report and show loyalty to their respective parties.

When the ten Selangor Exco members took office they swore loyalty to the Selangor State Government and to the Sultan and also to keep government secrets confidential. In fact, state Exco papers are covered under the Official Secrets Act just like federal cabinet papers whether they are stamped RAHSIA or not.

Hence their new oath to be loyal to their parties and to refer all Exco matters to their respective parties before taking a vote on any matter is a violation of their oath of office.

Maybe in their euphoria to defy the Menteri Besar they did not realise this new oath of loyalty to the party rather than to the government and to refer all Exco matters to their parties opens them to the charge that they have violated their oath of office.

The now sacked Exco members say they will ignore their sacking and will still report for work today. They also challenged their sacking and said that since the Sultan appointed them Khalid has no power to sack them.

According to the NST late last night, Khalid actually received the consent of the Sultan to sack them. This would mean Khalid does have the authority to sack them because not only did the Sultan consent to the sacking but the Exco is Khalid’s state cabinet to do with as he pleases (with the ruler’s consent, of course).

Most likely the State Secretariat would place guards outside the offices of the sacked Exco members to ensure they do not enter their offices illegally. Furthermore, all their files would certainly be locked up and subsequently impounded so that an investigation can be done regarding any transgressions, abuse of power or corrupt acts.

I can see some of these files making their way to the anti-corruption agency so that an investigation can be launched plus possible arrests if anything untoward is found in these files.

One such transgression would be the corruption behind the sand mining contracts, which first surfaced four years ago.

Khalid has three months until November (when the state assembly next sits) to neutralise his adversaries. And three months is enough time for Khalid to wipe out his adversaries and then sit out his term until the next general election in 2018 or so.

Do they not say in America you cannot fight city hall?