Was Humpty Dumpty pushed in Selangor?

We are more like the British than you might think in matters of the monarchy.

COMMENT

We may gain a little insight into the recent MB crisis in Selangor by looking at the creation of the independent Federation of Malaya and the history of succession to the prime minister’s post, although not all of the questions will be answered.

Tunku was the Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya, a self-governing colony of the British Empire, ruled by Queen Elizabeth II. So the Tunku was in fact a colonial minister of the British crown until the legislation granting independence to the federation.

In the pre-independent Federation, the first democratic election was in 1955. This was when Tunku became the Chief Minister of the Federation. There wasn’t yet a Yang diPertuan Agung; so Tunku’s appointment must have received the assent of the British Crown.

It was a fast track process to democracy, a condition insisted upon when the British decided to grant independence to the Federation.

So in 1956, Lord Reid began drafting the Federal Constitution of Malaya. The Federation of Malaya Independence Act 1957 was an act of the British Parliament. It came into operation on July 31 1957. The structure and form of our government mirror those of the British. Lord Reid made sure of that. We are more like the British than you might think in matters of the monarchy.

Thus the birth of the independent nation came about with the signing of the Federal Constitution on May 21, when the Yang diPertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan became the first Yang diPertuan Agung, and Tunku became the first Prime Minister. The registration of that birth was by the British Parliament legislation of July 31. The celebration followed a month later on August 31, which we now associate with the declaration of “Merdeka” by Tunku.

We can see from modern history that Tunku’s appointment pre-independence was never in doubt. His reappointment in the subsequent years must have been easy for the rulers as he was instrumental in the conception, delivery and nurture of the nation in its adolescent years. He held the position of prime minister till his retirement in 1970.

The first test of the constitutional process of appointment must have been his successor’s, in Tun Razak. The chain of deputies rising to the top post has never been broken and the tradition carries till today, with current PM Najib taking over from Pak Lah. Witnessing this convention for the succession to prime ministership, from the infancy of the nation till the present, it is natural that questions would be raised about the extraordinary manner in which the successor to Khalid Ibrahim was recently chosen.

Nearly every step of the MB crisis has been far from ordinary. From the conception to the execution of the Kajang Move, with its conclusion in the appointment of Azmin Ali, the process has been novel and surprising. The fluidity and dynamism observed could not possibly have come from a reliance on a ponderous system of dry rules and assembly standing orders. It was this unpredictability that concerned the citizens most.

The Alliance Party, composed of Umno, MCA and MIC, was registered as a political organisation on October 30 1957. It became Barisan National (BN) in 1973 with the addition of more parties to the coalition.

So BN is a single entity, unlike Pakatan Rakyat. Had Zaid Ibrahim completed the registration of PR with the ROS before his departure, it might have strengthened the case for a single nominee to be accepted by the palace.

The Sultan asked for more than two names when it became evident that Khalid had lost the majority support of the state assembly. Had the choices of PKR, DAP and PAS been unanimous, would the Sultan then have accepted Wan Azizah as MB? Likely perhaps, but we will never know for sure.

Section 53.4 of the Selangor Constitution says, “In appointing a Menteri Besar, His Highness may in his discretion dispense with any provision in this Constitution restricting his choice of a Menteri Besar, if in his opinion it is necessary to do so in order to comply with the provisions of this Article.” It is clear that the Sultan’s discretion is inbuilt. Thus he did not score in an off-side situation, and the Constitution would look different if Selangor’s system were a pure democracy.

Continents away, internal Whitehall papers prepared by Cabinet Office lawyers show that in 1999, Queen Elizabeth vetoed the Military Actions Against Iraq Bill in 1999, which aimed to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to Parliament. The power of veto has been used by Prince Charles on more than 12 government bills since 2005 on issues ranging from gambling to the Olympics.

In Selangor, the chicken or egg question has to be whether a monarch is able to steer behind the scenes to arrive at his conclusion that a candidate would command a hypothetical majority. A rigid assembly based decision would take time. And the words of the Constitution provide a concept without specifics on how the Sultan is to arrive at his opinion.

It may be argued that this was not in the spirit of the Article, but it is not unconstitutional per se.

So did the majority already exist in an alternate reality, or did the Sultan reshape that reality by giving it a nudge in the direction he wanted?

Did Humpty Dumpty fall off by himself or was he pushed, and then all the King’s men and all the King’s horses quickly put him back up on the wall again?