Guan Eng, Khalid To Resign Upon Dissolution

I am just pre-empting.

The Pakatan dunggus are now thinking up new tricks to confuse the people. Some of them are saying that when Parliament is dissolved for the General Elections - the Government would have "resigned". 

Therefore pending the outcome of the General Elections there must be an interim caretaker Government that must include Lim Kit Siang as Interim Deputy Prime Minister, Karpal Singh as Interim Minister of Cows & Goats, Mat Sapu as Minister of Women's Affairs, Anwar as Minister of Youths & Boys and what not.

This is their bullshit. We have Constitutional provisions about exactly how the country is administered which has been in place seamlessly for 56 years since 1957.  Until the day that votes are cast and the ballots are counted the Government of the day carries on its job of governing the land. 

However if Lim Guan Eng feels that he should resign his position as Chief Minister of Penang and hand over the State to an Interim government consisting of UMNO and other BN assemblymen as well, please be my guest. 

The same goes for Khalid in Selangor, Azizan in Kedah and tin sadin in Kelantan. They can all resign as Menteri Besar and we can have Interim governments which includes the UMNO and BN boys running the place between the dissolution of Parliament and Polling Day. Apa macam? Boleh ke tak boleh?

I find that these people are getting more desperate and ridiculous as more time passes. They come up with these silly and unworkable ideas which show their considerable immaturity.

In the same vein, that former judge or someone who wrote that article in The Star was mistaken about the power of the Rulers in the dissolution of the Legislature.  The former judge made it plain that the Ruler has the final say in dissolving the Legislature (State Assembly or Parliament). I think this is not the correct picture. Because the same judge wrote that the Constitution says that "the Ruler has the right not to consent to the dissolution of the Legislature". 

Read carefully. They do not mean the same thing. Obviously these words were cleverly crafted by the committee which drafted the Federal Constitution.  Read again.  The Ruler does not have the right to dissolve the Legislature.  The Ruler cannot call the Prime Minister or the Menteri Besar and say, "I am dissolving the Legislature". It does not work that way.

It is the Prime Minister or the Menteri Besar who has to inform the Ruler that they wish to dissolve the Assembly. Only then can the Ruler either consent or withhold his consent to dissolving the Assembly. 

If you are unclear about this situation, then ponder this. What if the Prime Minister or Menteri Besar simply allows the term of the Legislature to run to its maximum tenure? The Prime Minister or Menteri Besar has the power to do this. In such case how is the Ruler going to "withhold" his consent? It becomes quite redundant.  

Or ponder another situation.  There is a Prime Minister who (by necessity and by the Constitution) must have the majority of Members of Parliament supporting him. Otherwise he cannot be PM.  The PM then applies to the Ruler to dissolve Parliament so that a General Election can be held.  Then a situation arises, for whatever reason, that the Ruler withholds his consent  to dissolve Parliament. (Why would he do that?)

This places the Ruler at opposite ends from the Prime Minister.  So to force the issue the Prime Minister simply resigns from his post.  And the PM still has the majority support of Parliament. The Ruler cannot appoint another Prime Minister because the new candidate will not have the support of the majority MPs in Parliament.  

This means the Ruler will have no choice but to consent to dissolve Parliament so that a General Election can be held to pick a new Prime Minister.  Which only proves that Parliament is supreme. Why is Parliament supreme? Because Parliament consists of elected representatives who represent the will of the people.  The Prime Minister who is himself an elected representative is merely a focal point which concentrates the will of the majority of the  people.  This we call a democracy.  

I am surprised that even judges are not clear about this concept.