Perak - the final frontier of childishness

The newspapers and blogsphere are abuzz with the actions of the executive and the members of the state assembly in Perak on 7 May 2009, a day all people in this once luminary state will remember. Grabbing power (i.e. controlling the state via its executive arm) is one thing, but when the house is brought down to gutter politics - that is another.

What is going on in Perak is ultimately gutter politics, and for the BN government there - no matter how much good is done for the people there, no matter how much they speak of unity and harmony, no matter how much they put into practise what they speak, the people's trust of the BN is damaged, and I would hazard a guess to say irreparably so.
This now has a spill over effect to the federal BN Government. The question is how far and wide is this spill over.

Trust is a fragile thing, difficult to obtain and easily lost. The BN state government in agreeing to take power forgot this. Power for the sake of power or at all costs does not build trust.

The point of this article is simply the following:
If the constitutional monarch had acted (as by convention he should) on the advice of his Menteri Besar who called for a dissolution of the house and a general election be held in the State, the gutter politics that is witnessed in Perak would be absent. Instead by arguing that the constitutional monarch has the absolute power to reject the advice of the MB has led to this situation that now exist in Perak.

Secondly the courts have also been dragged into this frontier, and has as Justice NH Chan said, did not interpret the constitutional provisions according to the simple and plain words that even a child would interpret. Instead some legal and interpretative gymnastics were used to justify their decision. Yet the decisions of the judges whether legal or otherwise, cannot substitute for the decision of the people because they the judges are unelected. How can the unelected dictate what the elected wishes. So when Nizar the MB asked for dissolution it is the elected who is asking and the unelected (the monarch, the judges etc) have to abide by the decision of the elected which is superior to that of the unelected.

Only by adhering to the convention that normality and the avoidance of gutter politics can emerge. Zambry should on being invited to form the state government, declined so that the general election could have been held, but he did not do so. This refusal to decline is evidenced of the need for power at all costs, no matter what the consequence to the state. Just like the action to sell off the Toyota Camrys that were purchased less than a year ago. Why? Because it was purchased by a Pakatan Rakyat Government and not by BN. Talk about childish.

This adherence to the convention has been omitted for whatever reason.
Today Perak can be said to be the effect of the very reason why the convention exist and that honest and prudent men would abide by it. To do otherwise is to court with the very foundation of a parliamentary democracy and the rights of the people.
It is a dangerous and slippery slope that the political party in power in Perak is now on.