SELANGOR IS NOW KHALID’S GOVERNMENT

Khalid will now have to address the issue of his ten-member EXCO. They are his EXCO. They should serve under him. And if they refuse to do so then they should resign. They cannot, as Sivarasa said, report to the party instead of to the boss when the Sultan appointed them on the advise of this boss.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Technically, since yesterday, when PKR sacked Khalid Ibrahim from the party, Selangor no longer has a Pakatan Rakyat government. It has a Khalid Ibrahim government. That is the implication of the present situation in Selangor.

Law expert Dr Abdul Aziz Bari is of the opinion that the sacking of Khalid spells the end to the Pakatan Rakyat government until a new Pakatan Rakyat Menteri Besar is appointed with the consent of HRH the Sultan of Selangor.

Dr Aziz is also of the opinion that Khalid no longer has any power to continue running Selangor because once he is sacked then the ten-member EXCO that he appointed is also considered automatically sacked since the EXCO is the Menteri Besar’s EXCO.

PKR Supreme Council member R. Sivarasa more or less confirmed this when he said that the EXCO would no longer report to or take instructions from the Menteri Besar but would now come under Pakatan Rakyat.

According to the Constitution, however, the EXCO is appointed by the Ruler on the advise of the Menteri Besar. Hence whether what Sivarasa said is legal or not is certainly questionable. If the EXCO does not report to him or refuses to follow his instructions, Khalid can actually have them removed and a new EXCO is appointed (by the Sultan).

When Khalid became the Menteri Besar as a Pakatan Rakyat representative, understandably, he would appoint his EXCO based on the wishes of his party. This means Pakatan Rakyat would submit the names of the ten to be appointed to the EXCO.

Now, however, since he is an independent and no longer belongs to any party, he need not listen to the party and can actually appoint a new EXCO of his own choosing.

The moral thing for Pakatan Rakyat to now do is to ask the ten EXCO members to resign. Would any Pakatan Rakyat representative want to serve as an EXCO member in, say, Kedah, which has a Barisan Nasional Menteri Besar? If the Pakatan Rakyat representative in Kedah is offered an EXCO post in Kedah and if he or she accepts that would be seen as a sell-out or betrayal and he or she would definitely face a sacking from the party.

The question of whether Khalid stays on as the Selangor Menteri Besar depends on whether he still has the support of the majority of the House, in this case the 56 State Assemblypersons. And to determine this can be done in two ways.

One would be a vote of no confidence is tabled in November during the next sitting of the House and if at least 29 of the 56 representatives vote against Khalid then it would be considered as he has lost the majority support.

The next method could be for HRH the Sultan to summon the representatives one-by-one to ask them their stand regarding Khalid and if at least 29 indicate they have lost confidence in Khalid then this, too, can be considered as he has lost the support of the majority.

In the meantime, until it has been determined whether he has lost the support of the majority or not, Khalid can continue serving as the Menteri Besar.

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad once faced the same issue in 1988 when Umno was deregistered. He continued serving as Prime Minister although he no longer belonged to any party and was an independent Prime Minister.

No doubt they could have ousted him with a no confidence vote in Parliament but they did not. Hence Dr Mahathir continued as Prime Minister until Umno Baru was formed and the new party was admitted into Barisan Nasional as a coalition partner.

The circumstances in 1988 may have been different from what happened yesterday. Nevertheless, the issue here is whether a Prime Minister or Menteri Besar can become an independent or party-less and continue to legally stay on as the CEO.

He can.

Khalid will now have to address the issue of his ten-member EXCO. They are his EXCO. They should serve under him. And if they refuse to do so then they should resign. They cannot, as Sivarasa said, report to the party instead of to the boss when the Sultan appointed them on the advise of this boss.

The moral thing for them to do, though, would be to resign to show that they no longer support or have confidence in Khalid because if they remain as EXCO members then this would be seen as they are endorsing Khalid’s leadership.