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Crossovers might be declared tonight!

Tomorrow is Malaysia Day, and perhaps the most highly anticipated Malaysia Day in the history of the nation. The question on everybody's mind is whether Anwar will be able to fulfill his promise of taking over the government by then.

While the Pakatan Rakyat leadership have been evasive over the past few weeks on the issue of crossovers, there appears to be some clues as to what would happen tomorrow/tonight.

Quoting from Malaysian Insider:

Saifuddin said it was also possible that BN or Umno MPs need not leave their party and simply told us to "study the Constitution and think outside the box-.

According to Article 43 (2) of the Federal Constitution, it is stated that "the Yang di-Pertuan Agong shall first appoint as Perdana Menteri (Prime Minister) to preside over the Cabinet a member of the House of Representatives who in his judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of that House-.

The three key words here are judgment, confidence and majority. Party allegiance is not mentioned.

According to Saifuddin's reasoning, MPs need to only give Anwar their "confidence" in forming a new administration. Since no defections are actually taking place, PR can spin it into a matter of "conscience" rather than "power-grabbing...


..."Majority here means the biggest single group. Most of the time it refers to the simple majority, but if there are more than two groups of MPs then the leader of the biggest one shall be appointed PM," explained Prof Abdul Aziz Bari, a constitutional academician from the International Islamic University.

"Our Constitution does not discriminate against the so-called minority government and it is at the discretion of the King and not subject to judicial review," he added....


The Malaysian Insider is indeed correct. A minority government can be declared, or BN MPs might declare their intention to defect from BN but not join PR. This has happened in many different countries around the world, most notably the minority governments of Canada. Either way, it will be pretty interesting to watch it unfold.

I have a feeling that tonight's rally in the Kelana Jaya Stadium at 7pm will be venue and place where Anwar declares his intentions and offers concrete evidence.

After all, the whole nation is waiting and banking on him.

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