The controversial Malacca state assembly sitting today saw some contemptible behaviour from its members with one hurling the standing order book while another two exchanging insults of "babi" (pig) and "pengkhianat" (traitor).
It started at the very early beginning of the sitting at about 9.30am when former chief minister Idris Haron (Sungai Udang-Umno) got into a shouting match with the speaker of the House, Omar Jaafar, which also saw several other Pakatan Harapan representatives joining in.
At the background, two others - Norhizam Hassan Baktee (Pengkalan Batu-Independent) and Low Chee Leong (Kota Laksamana-DAP) - had another battle of their own, exchanging barrages of swear words and almost got physical.
In the first incident, Idris stood up when the assembly was about to start, stopping Omar short from initiating prayer recitation to mark the commencement of the sitting.
Holding a handbook in one hand, Idris told Omar that the latter no longer fit to be on the speaker's seat.
He said that Harapan had lost the majority in the assembly and so did Omar. Idris then told the speaker to allow motions to vote in replacement for Omar and his deputy Dr Wong Fort Pin.
Based on videos made available to Malaysiakini, several other assemblypersons seated at the opposition then started joining in, shouting on top of their lungs.
It was not really clear what they were saying to each other, except that Omar was heard telling his critic to sit down.
"... When the speaker stands up, all others (should) sit down!" Omar was heard saying to Idris, to the cheers of opposition representatives.
Several Harapan assemblypersons were also heard telling Idris (photo) to respect Omar as the speaker, while others called for him to be kicked out of the sitting.
It is learnt that the argument ended with Idris throwing the state assembly's standing order handbook towards Omar, who later ordered for the sitting to be postponed to another date, which is yet to be determined.
"I told the speaker that he was not fit to be in the sitting. I wanted to read the handbook but was not allowed by the speaker and the opposition members.
"At the end, when the situation was beyond his control, the speaker adjourned the sitting," Idris said when met by reporters outside the assembly hall in Seri Negeri, Ayer Keroh.
He admitted that he had thrown the book towards Omar out of anger, but Idris said what he did was not insulting.
"Insult to the House? I say that the speaker had insulted the House even more, as he had rejected motions due to his conflict of interests.
"And their action of blocking me from bringing the motion is more insulting than what I did by throwing the book."
Last week, it was reported that Omar had rejected four out of six motions proposed by new Chief Minister Sulaiman Md Ali, which seek to discuss the replacement of Omar and Wong in today's sitting.
PN is seeking to remove the speaker and deputy speaker after they managed to secure the majority to form a new state government in March, thus seeing the fall of Harapan state administration which ruled since it secured victory in the 2018 general election.
Norhizam versus Low
Meanwhile, when Idris was arguing with the speaker, another verbal brawl happened between Norhizam and Low.
For context, it should be noted that the two had been having arguments since last month over political issues between them.
A one-minute video on Facebook shows the exchanges started with Norhizam and Low challenging each other to a physical fight.
This then turned into repeated exchanges of words where Norhizam was heard calling Low "babi", while the latter returned the favour by calling Norhizam "pengkhianat".
"Babi! Babi! Babi! Babi!" said Norhizam, pointing his finger at Low.
"Kau pengkhianat! (You're a traitor)," replied Low.
It is believed that Low was referring to Norhizam's decision to cross over from DAP to support PN, which led to the fall of Harapan state government.
Several other representatives were then seen trying to calm Norhizam down, before the video ended.
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