THE British newspaper, The Guardian, in a March 3 editorial, brazenly and mischievously depicted the appointment of Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as prime minister by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as a royal coup.
The editorial, ‘The Guardian view on a royal coup: a king overturns a historic election’, breathtakingly and speciously claimed that the Malaysian monarchy took advantage of the recent political turmoil to engineer its own coup that went against the people’s mandate in the last general election.
Either the editors of the newspaper are ignorant of the workings of Malaysia’s constitutional monarchy along with their ignorance of the Malaysian Federal Constitution, or they have some hidden agenda against the king and Muhyiddin.
Firstly, the crisis was never constitutional.
It was purely political.
The king, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, under the Malaysian system of governance, is above politics and had to step in to resolve a political crisis that was unprecedented.
When Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad precipitated a political crisis by submitting his resignation as prime minister to the palace on Feb 24, the king accepted his resignation and appointed him as the interim prime minister.
There is nothing unconstitutional in this. Of course, when Dr Mahathir resigned, the whole cabinet under him also ceased to exist.
So, for a while, Malaysia was without a government although she had an interim prime minister.
The king, in his wisdom, realised that it was not good for Malaysia not to have a government for a prolonged period and thus, he set about to resolve this by interviewing all 222 parliamentarians on who they thought should lead the government.
This is provided for under Article 43(2)(a) of the Federal Constitution, which explicitly provides for the king to appoint as prime minister a member of the Dewan Rakyat who he thinks commands the confidence of the majority in the House.
This simply means a member of parliament who gained the support of at least 112 MPs.
Beginning Feb 25, the king undertook the painstaking and meticulous task of ascertaining and verifying the support of every single MP.
He interviewed individual MPs about their support for the names put forward as the candidate for prime minister.
On Feb 28, on the basis of these interviews, the palace issued a statement that the king had not come to a decision on who had the confidence of the majority of the parliamentarians to form a new government.
“The palace will liaise with the leaders of the political parties who have representatives in the Dewan Rakyat to give them an opportunity to nominate a member of the Dewan Rakyat as the next prime minister,” the statement added.
Finally, on the next day, Feb 29, the palace issued another statement which said that it received a list of nominees of future prime ministers from heads of political parties and independent representatives of the Dewan Rakyat.
“After receiving representation from all the leaders of the political parties representing their parties and the independent MPs, in the opinion of His Majesty, the member of parliament who has the confidence of the majority of the Dewan Rakyat is Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, member of parliament for Pagoh (P143),” added the statement.
Thus, it is simply perplexing and baffling that The Guardian editorial chose a very mischievous and inaccurate heading.
And the irony is that the rest of the editorial, including the angle proper, confirms the laughable nature of the title!
Secondly, nowhere in the editorial is an effort made to justify let alone explain why it thinks that the king’s action in bypassing Dr Mahathir and appointing Muhyiddin instead as prime minister should be taken seriously, if at all.
The editorial simply assumes and injects the claim after what is a mere repetition or rehashing of the facts surrounding the political intrigue and manoeuvrings.
In conclusion, not only is the title entirely misguided and not in sync with the angle of the rest of the editorial, there is no analysis done as to how and why the political imbroglio and brouhaha could do nothing better than to invite and incur the constitutional intervention (not interference, mind you) of the king.
Jamari Mohtar and Jason Loh are part of the research team at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times