Prescene 11 – Pakatan Rakyat will use their powers to suspend Barisan Nasional’s assemblymen

On 12 March 2009, Gobind Singh Deo made at least three remarks in Parliament accusing that Najib is involved in the murder of Altantuya Shaaribu. An extract of the the Parliament’s Hansard can be viewed here.

Such accusation is a blatant misuse of Parliamentary privilege given to Members of the Parliament on remarks made by them during debates in the House of Parliament. Accusing somebody as a murderer, when the case is still outstanding in court, and that the person mentioned is not even part of the court proceedings, is a gross misbehaviour which should not be condoned.

Gobind has been suspended for a year effective today. The Parliament, controlled by Barisan Nasional, voted for the suspension.

We should however note that Pakatan Rakyat controls the State Assemblies of Penang, Selangor, Perak(?), Kelantan and Kedah. The State Assembly Speakers from these states are all Pakatan Rakyat’s assemblymen.

In a tit-for-tat action, Jurublog believes that these Pakatan Rakyat-controlled State Assemblies will take cue of today’s suspension of Gobind and ensure that they do their best to give Barisan Nasional’s assemblymen the taste of their own bitter medicine.

Any “misbehaviour” on the part of Barisan Nasional’s state assemblymen will be subjected to severe scrutiny by the respective Speakers, which may easily lead to the Barisan Nasional assemblymen’s suspensions. Each suspension of Barisan Nasional’s state assemblymen would certainly reduce the chance of Barisan Nasional from taking over the state government ala-Perak.

The current Parliament and State Assemblies are only into their second year, and we have several more challenging years before the next General Election.

We should thus expect some high-handed tactics to suspend Barisan Nasional assemblymen during the current term of the Pakatan Rakyat-controlled state governments.

We have seen it happening in Perak.

By suspending Gobind, Pakatan Rakyat’s supporters are crying foul over the 100,000 people of Puchong losing their representative in the Parliament.

What about the so many other Perak voters who supposedly lost their representatives’ voices in the State Assembly by the Speaker’s action to suspend Zambry, his six EXCO members and the three independents? That’s a lot more people that we should be concerned about. Aren’t Zambry and the others following the Sultan’s judgment call and consent to act as the legitimate state government? Isn’t the act of suspending the assemblymen not a sheer abuse of power by the Perak Speaker, in defiance of the Sultan’s order? Or is it true that there is a different set of rules of law applicable only to Pakatan Rakyat?