another froggy from PKR!

mohd radzhis salleh, assemblyman fron lunas, kedah and a PKR member, jumped out of PKR to become an independent!

what? not another one? after that two from perak who jumped and ultimately caused the downfall of PR in perak. btw, what happened to their corruption charges? conveniently forget by MACC as a payment for them jumping?

coming back to the lunas exco, why jumped? people will surely talk of being lured by UMNO with RM, RM, RM!! and just like all the other froggies, you think so easy for you to become independent without people making noises eh? people elected you on a PKR ticket not on an independent ticket.

this radzhis seems to have a thick face lah. he said he will still continue as exco working independently as he was appointed by the sultan. hey, kawan, but how did you get to the road for the sultan to appoint you? the rakyat voted you! sorry correction. the rakyat voted you as a PKR member!

anyway, glad to know that kedah MB (picture above, taken from the malaysian insider), will seek an audience with the sultan to request for someone to replace radzhis. hopefully the sultan will be wise… to see it as the way we see it, that it is not fair for him to hang on to the exco’s seat now that he is an independent.

why we often heard of PKR froggies? why not DAP? why not PAS? er… DAP there was one, the female froggy from jelapang. is it because most PKR members are ex UMNO members and those who jumped are ex UMNO members who wants to return to UMNO or was enticed by UMNO to leave PR!! well, the PKR election director, saifuddin nasution, had admitted PKR elected representatives are the weakest link within the PR coalition (read from malaysiakini, full article below after click on ‘read the rest of this entry’).

you know, once there was this much hype about the anti-hopping law… to enact it or not but in the end all was quiet, so i guess this means being a froggy is legal and the person’s rights to do so. fine. then what about introducing a law which states that once an elected representative resigned from his party, s/he should give up his state/parliament seats. can or not?

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Lunas state rep quits PKR, turns Independent
Athi Shankar
Aug 23, 09, 1:03pm

Kedah Pakatan has today been rocked with a defection – Lunas state assemblyperson Mohd Radzhi Salleh, who is also an executive council member, quit PKR citing loss of confidence in the party’s leadership.

He has announced himself as an independent state assemblyman.

Radzhi, 56, will nevertheless continue as Lunas seat representative as well as the state executive council post.

But his state cabinet post is in doubt as Kedah Menteri Besar Azizan Razak is likely to ask him step down from his tourism and community development portfoio.

With Radzhi’s resignation from PKR, the PAS-led government Kedah now has 21 seats against Barisan Nasional 14, with one Independent.

The Pakatan Rakyat state government is composed of PAS (16 seats), PKR (now 4) and DAP (1), while Umno makes up the bulk of BN with 12 seats while MCA and Gerakan has one each.

In an immediate reaction, PKR leaders said that Radzhi’s resignation could be triggered by a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigation into his tourism portfolio.

They also said that the PKR leadership had expressed dissatisfaction over his performance.

Padang Serai PKR division ‘dissolved’

Radzhi’s decision to quit PKR has not come as a surprise to Padang Serai parliamentarian N Gobalakrishnan.

“I was expecting it for a long time … he was close to Mahdzir Khalid (former Kedah menteri besar),” said the MP from Kedah, whose Padang Serai constituency includes the Lunas state seat.

Radzhi won Lunas in the general election last year defeating MIC’s S Ananthan Somasundram by 10,323 majority votes.

The other state seat under Gobalakrishnan’s constituency is Merbau Pulas held by PAS’ Siti Aishah Ghazali.

A key ally of Radzhi, acting Padang Serai PKR division chief Jamaludin Abu Hassan has also today announced that his division had been dissolved.

Gobalakrishnan said he had received numerous complaints on Radzhi’s poor performance from party members and voters over the past six months.

He claimed that Radzhi’s defection was timed to enable BN to reclaim the initiative in the Permatang Pasir by-election campaign in neigbouring Penang.

“Now Umno can portray PKR and Pakatan as crumbling in Kedah. By doing so, Umno thought it can fish some votes in Permatang Pasir.

“But the truth is PKR in Padang Serai and the Kedah Pakatan government are still strong, united and safe,” he told Malaysiakini.

BN seeks to engineer coup in Kedah

Defection rumours involving Radzhi first surfaced when former PKR leader V Arumugam quit as Kedah exco and Bukit Selambau assemblyperson in February.

S Manikumar won the Bukit Selambau state seat in the subsequent by-election in April.

Gobalakrishnan said the party supreme council had suspended Padang Serai division in April “for carrying out activities against PKR interests” during the Bukit Selambau by-election campaign.

Some Kedah PKR leaders indicated that the lack of strong PKR state leadership and the domination of PAS in the state government could well be other major factors that had influenced Radzhi’s decision to defect.

Last month, the sole DAP assemblyperson, Lee Guan Aik (Kota Darul Aman), had threatened to quit the state cabinet in protest over the relocation of a pig abbatoir.

“Radzhi was quiet unhappy with PAS leaders lately due to the lack of help from state government for him to carry out his exco duties and constituency works in Lunas.

“So when Umno came calling, he was tempted,” said an elected representative, adding that he would not be surprised if Radzhi joins Umno soon.

Another leader said he believed BN had always harboured hopes of luring all five PKR assemblypersons to secure the necessary numbers to topple the Kedah government.

If all PKR men were to jump ship, BN would have 19 seats against Pakatan’s 17, enough to form a razor-thin majority.

Besides Radzhi, the other PKR excutive councillors in Kedah are S Manikumar and Bakar Arang state representative Tan Wei Shu.

Manikumar is in charge of domestic trade and consumer affairs, Thai community affairs, plantation workers’ unity and Indian community affairs, while Tan is in charge of environment, Chinese community affairs and transport.

Later in the afternoon, Gobalakrishnan and a group of PKR supporters held an impromtu protest outside the Padang Serai constitutency service centre calling on Radzhi to quit his Lunas seat to pave way for a by-election (photo, above).

PKR reps are Pakatan’s weakness link

Meanwhile, PKR election director Saifuddin Nasution said Radzhi’s defection would not cause much harm to PAS’ bid in winning the Permatang Pasir by-election.

“I don’t think Umno spin doctors can sway that many votes,” said the former Lunas assemblyperson who is now Machang parliamentarian.

He described Radzhi as a rotten apple in PKR and said the party was happy to see the back of him.

“We have always suspected this scenario would happen since six to seven months ago. PKR will be better without him.”

However, Saifuddin conceded that PKR elected representatives are the weakest link within the Pakatan coalition.

“It’s something that the party leadership needs look into seriously. Otherwise it will shake public confidence in us,” he said.

PKR supreme council member Saiful Izham Ramli has disputed the status of Padang Serai division.

He explained that the division had been suspended since last month after the party found both Radzhi and Jamaludin were engaging in secret talks with Umno leaders to plot against the Kedah state government.

Saiful said PKR Sungai Petani MP Johari Abdul had been tasked by the party to take over the division.