Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin remains the LEGITIMATE Mentri Besar of Perak

I read the above report in Malaysiakini with growing admiration and respect for Perak Mentri Besar Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin's courage, integrity and mental clarity in the face of grave adversity.

From all reports Mohd Nizar has shown himself to be an effective and generally well-received Mentri Besar, one that most Perakians have come to love and trust in the ten months since he first took office.

In facing squarely up to this unprecedented attack on his administration by finance minister Najib Razak (who really ought to be focusing his attention on ways to mitigate the impact of the global financial meltdown instead of busying himself with ugly politicking like some street hoodlum) Mohd Nizar has beyond the shadow of a doubt proven his mettle as the legitimate Mentri Besar of Perak.

Mohd Nizar's stand that the Perak state assembly must be dissolved so that a fresh mandate to govern be granted by the voters in Perak is the only logical and reasonable one.

All of us had pinned our hopes on Sultan Azlan Shah, believing he would weigh the interests of his people against his own family's business commitments, and make a fair and just decision in favor of democracy. Alas, our hopes appear to have been dashed.

The unholy haste with which Najib Razak and the BN regime have acted to oust Mohd Nizar and the Pakatan Rakyat state government can only lead to serious doubts about the honorability of their intentions for the state.

Najib's desperate act, albeit condoned by the palace, is akin to legitimizing a forcible overthrow of the popularly elected Pakatan Rakyat state government through devious and questionable means - especially in the light (or darkness rather) of Fauzi Muda's statutory declaration which states that the deputy prime minister had offered Fauzi a RM50 million reward in March 2008 if he would help topple the newly appointed Pakatan state government by buying over a few representatives.

It's one thing for politicians to crossover on grounds of conscience and quite another purely because of monetary incentives. Even if a handful of BN politicians had defected to Pakatan Rakyat, the voters would have insisted that fresh elections be called to legitimize their new allegiances.

As things stand, Najib Razak's acute fear of losing power has jeopardized our hopes of a peaceful transition from Umno-style "guided democracy" to full-fledged participatory democracy via constitutional means. This man is completely devoid of ethical principles, has shown no respect whatsoever for public opinion, and is clearly unfit to become our next prime minister.

Indeed, what Najib Razak has accomplished by leading this grotesque pirate attack on the Perak constitution is to further demonstrate that the corrupt and arrogant Umno/BN regime is long past its use-by date and needs to be immediately trashed.

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