It has been more than two years since the Perak power-grab orchestrated by BN enabled them to take control of the Silver State on Feb 5, 2009.Since then, the Perak State Assembly sittings have always been chaotic affairs due to the antics of the BN-installed Speaker who never fails to switch-off the microphones of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) lawmakers.
The upcoming Perak State Assembly sitting on Monday Nov 21 promises to be exciting as the court-installed Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir will be presenting the Perak 2012 Budget.
It must be mentioned that the Perak State Assembly is the only one of its kind in the world after the BN-masterminded power grab. Moreover, the BN speaker silences the voice of the PR lawmakers by switching off the latter’s microphones.
In a Machiavellian and well-executed move planned during the 2009 Chinese Lunar New Year period, three state assemblymen from PR declared themselves to be BN-friendly and that was the coup-de-grace that toppled Perak.
Subsequently, the court battles between the PAS Menteri Besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin and the BN-installed Menteri Besar Zambry ended on Feb 9, 2010 with the Federal Court’s 5-0 decision in favour of Zambry as the legal and valid Menteri Besar.
Chief Judge of Malaya Justice Arifin Zakaria, who read out the decision said the Bench found that the Court of Appeal was justified in reversing the High Court decision which had earlier declared Nizar as the rightful Perak Menteri Besar.
That the Court Of Appeal’s decision was expected was not surprising but what was surprising was the 5-0 verdict as many had expected it to be a close verdict of 3-2. Nizar had labelled the verdict as the death of democracy.
Be that as it may, a recap of state assembly sittings post-Feb 5, 2009, revealed that after the coup on that said date there has been nothing but constant bullying of the Pakatan state assemblymen by BN lawmakers making it difficult for the Pakatan men to fulfill their duties.
One of the most famous events that should be remembered by all those who fight for democracy is the Democracy Tree Assembly held on March 3, 2009, where the PR state assemblymen were forced to hold the Dewan sitting by assembling under a huge rainforest tree near the Perak DAP HQ due to being locked out of the State Secretariat Building where the Dewan sittings take place.
read more at FreeMalaysiaToday.com
