Tell us the truth on Kajang Move

PKR is saying that Malaysians are not clever enough to understand these reasons so they will not be telling us these real reasons.

COMMENT

By Salleh Said Keruak

The move to vacate the Kajang state constituency so that a by-election could be held has triggered an active debate with people even from the opposition ranks and known staunch opposition supporters being bitterly divided on the matter.

Pakatan Rakyat is always lamenting about the wastages of the country’s financial resources and by-elections cost large sums of money.

So would this unnecessary by-election not be considered wasting the country’s financial resources when there is no need for such a by-election in the first place?

PKR’s chief strategist Rafizi Ramli said that the Kajang by-election is crucial to prevent a BN coup in Selangor through the declaration of a state of emergency.

He then cited the example of Kelantan in 1977 when the federal government declared an emergency, which subsequently resulted in the downfall of the PAS state government.

Rafizi further said that the rising tensions over the ‘Allah’ row and the confiscation of the Malay language Bibles could escalate into street violence. Hence what happened in Kelantan in 1997 could well happen in Selangor.

What Rafizi did not explain is that the confiscation of the Bibles happened in Selangor and was done by the Selangor state religious authority. So why can’t this be resolved at state level?

Soon after Pakatan took over the Selangor state administration in 2008, the local council confiscated beer that was being sold in a 7-Eleven in Selangor, which also triggered a crisis.

as resolved when the state exco member from DAP, YB Ronnie Liu, ordered the local council to return the confiscated beer. Thus the matter was easily resolved and since then 7-Eleven or any other outlets never faced the problem of confiscation of beer.

Anwar Ibrahim added that the second problem that Selangor is facing is that the state administrators or those in the state civil service are sabotaging Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim.

And this is because the State Secretary, State Financial Officer, State Legal Adviser, and so on, are appointed by the Public Services Commission (PSD), which means these are all federal appointments.

How can replacing Menteri Besar Khalid change this if the state has no say in these appointments and has no power and authority to bring the state civil service under state control even if Anwar takes over as Menteri Besar?

Pakatan controls 44 out of the 56 State Assembly seats, which means it is more than two-thirds of the State Assembly. Pakatan can amend the State Constitution so that the state can make these appointments instead of the PSD.

Why not Pakatan do this instead of changing the Menteri Besar, which is not going to solve the problem anyway?

Surprise resignation or planned move?

For that matter, the State Assembly can also amend or repeal the state law that forbids non-Muslims from using “Allah” and the two dozen or so other “Islamic” words considering that this law was passed by the state back in 1988.

When three DAP state assemblypersons proposed to bring this matter to the State Assembly so that the 1988 law can be amended or repealed, Anwar opposed that move.

When asked during a press conference recently, Anwar said that this was not necessary and what we need to do instead was to educate the Muslims.

What does Anwar mean by ‘educate the Muslims’? The problem is the 1988 law because this is the law that was used to confiscate the Bibles. Hence, since the law is the problem, then why not remove the source of the problem, the law?

How can educating Muslims solve the problem when the state religious authority was merely acting according to what the law stipulated?

And note that the 1988 law that we are talking about is actually a civil law and not syariah law. Hence the state does not need the Ruler’s consent. It only needs more than two-thirds majority in the State Assembly. (I believe to amend the constitution you need more than two-thirds, but to amend an Enactment you need a simple majority).

Rafizi said that he was behind the plan to vacate the Kajang seat so that Anwar could contest it in a by-election in this scheme called the Kajang Move. In fact, Anwar was not even aware of this plan until Jan 25, explained Rafizi, and that this had been planned for some time.

But when the Kajang state assemblyman first resigned, they announced that it was a surprise resignation that caught everyone off-guard and that he was not instructed to resign.

Today, you tell us it was planned all along and that the plan was hatched long before he resigned.

There is just too much twisting and turning. One day they say this and the next day they say the opposite.

The contradictions are just so glaring. Now they tell us that there are reasons they cannot reveal and that we would not be able to understand them even if they did reveal these reasons.

Hence, what they are saying is that Malaysians are not clever enough to understand these reasons so they will not be telling us these real reasons.

The writer is Sabah’s deputy Umno chief and the state assembly speaker.