20 Apr 2024, 15:52 Kuching
20 Apr 2024, 08:52 London
Zahid Hamidi’s audience with the Agong has been postponed…
“Yes, my meeting has been postponed as well to a later date,” he told .. when contacted.
Istana Negara has also postponed a meeting with DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) president Mohamad Sabu.
Yesterday, Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said after his audience that the Agong would meet the heads of political parties to verify the former’s claim to have secured majority support with which to take over the government.
However, the Istana Negara said in a statement after Anwar’s audience that the Opposition leader did not provide a detailed list of lawmakers whose support he claimed, and that Al-Sultan Abdullah then advised Anwar to abide by the Federal Constitution.
The comptroller of the royal household also said that Istana Negara was in a “semi-lockdown” pursuant to the conditional movement control order imposed on the Klang Valley.
Umno veteran Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was seen entering the Istana Negara after Anwar left yesterday.
Watching the weeks of prevarication, ducking and diving by certain actors in Malaysia one could be forgiven for thinking the country has forgotten that it is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy.
Parliament has of course barely been called since Moo’s backdoor coup in February and the country has been run by effective decree.
If, as appears certain, the Parliament-shy PM has now lost his tiny majority in the sovereign representative assembly then there is one place to test that crucial matter and that is in the sovereign Parliament itself.
Indeed, when this now protracted crisis first hit with the Azmin/Bersatu defection at the start of the year the former prime minister immediately sought to call an emergency sitting of Parliament to test support among the people’s representatives, who are the ultimate authority in the land (not the Agong).
That was the right and proper thing to do, but the move was immediately scotched by Muhyiddin, who was given his chance by the Agong to take over the PM role without any reference to Parliament after he lied about his numbers – in fact no MP had named him as their leader.
Now, once more Parliament is being denied its leading role instead of being called to settle who governs in a proper and open manner.
In consequence, the country continues to be ruled by a handful of hated and fractious rebels who are looting the public purse and running Malaysia’s credibility into the ground.
Wait for the November sitting of Parliament to be ‘postponed owing to Covid’ also.
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