The Perak Conspiracy...Pt 6

2 Feb 2009:

Perak State Legislative Assembly speaker V. Sivakumar notifies Perak Election Commission director that Behrang and Changkat Jering state seats were vacant.

Perak PKR chairman Osman Abdul Rahman said both Jamaluddin and Mohd Osman did not announce that they are leaving PKR. A representative of Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi informs the media in Sepang that Jamaluddin was still a PKR member. A representative of Mohd Osman Jailu informs the media in Shah Alam that Mohd Osman did not resign.

That the 2 reps intended to confuse the situation was clear. What is unclear is whether Osman was a “strategic friendly”? If so, it would mean that the PKR had been infiltrated at leadership levels by UMNO agents.

The duo's announcement effectively tied the PR's hands. The Speaker could not justifiably call for by-elections unless the status of the 2 PKR reps were determined. And when the pre-signed resignation letters were produced, the 2 missing reps surfaced to challenge their validity, then promptly disappeared again. There was no way to contact them and to get a court ruling may take weeks or months. Time was of the essence and the PR was quickly running out of it.

The public was treated to lie after lie of where the 2 PKR reps were. But the fact that they went right back to being MIA right after explaining their whereabouts only made a mockery of their explanations. Only UMNO/BN would expect the public to accept their most blatant lies as truth just because.

This was probably a ploy to keep the PR tangled up in legal issues, wasting precious time. It could also be that, with the issue of the resignation letters and the possibility of by-elections looming. UMNO had to at least try to maintain the illusion of status quo to justify the EC's illegal decision later.

While the PR were busy trying to sort out the legal mess, UMNO was moving their final pieces into place for the checkmate.

3 Feb 2009:

Election Commission decide that (N14) Changkat Jering and (N59) Behrang state seats are not vacant and by-election not required.

Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi declares himself an independent state assemblyman after PKR forwards a letter to Perak State Legislative Assembly speaker V. Sivakumar that he had resigned.

The EC – supposedly a neutral organisation tasked to manage elections - had overstepped their boundaries by making a judgement on the status of seats, which was the prerogative of the Speaker. Any doubt should have been resolved in court by the disputing parties – NOT the EC.

It's also telling that the 2 jumpers made their announcements to quit the party after the EC's verdict. This implies the 2 jumpers were biding their time until the EC's verdict was announced, which in turn implies that the EC was in on the plot because the verdict was expected.

By now, it was clear that the PR govt was royally screwed. UMNO's defection deal had been hammered out much earlier by the defectors. Now they were safe in the hands of their UMNO hosts to prevent them from being convinced not to defect. The EC is obviously one of the “strategic friendlies”. The legitimately elected PR government was being thwarted at every turn.

Their desperate attempts to hold on to power was of no use when legality was thrown out the window by the BN and their agents. The PR had one final recourse - to dissolve the State Assembly and hold new state elections. To do that, YB Nizar first had to inform the Sultan and get his consent.

But that gave rise to another set of unusual circumstances.

to be continued...