PETALING JAYA: Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia will continue as Dewan Rakyat speaker for the upcoming 13th Parliamentary term.
Star online quoting sources said Pandikar, a former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, replaced Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib as Speaker in 2008.
The Speaker for the upcoming session will have to be firm and respected by both sides, as there is a larger number of opposition MPs in the Lower House this time around.
Pakatan Rakyat currently holds 89 seats, seven more than after the 2008 elections, the largest number of Opposition MPs in Parliament to date.
Ruling coalition Barisan Nasional has 133 seats.
Parliament will convene on June 24 and is expected to be extremely dynamic and fiery due to the Opposition’s strong presence.
Other names speculated for the role were Ramli, former Senate President Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Pawanteh and former Information, Communications and Culture Minister Tan Sri Rais Yatim.
And even before he could get his second term confirmed, Pandikar has already irked the opposition with his threat earlier in the day that MPs who do not get sworn in on the first day of the new Parliament would be disqualified.
Newcomer, and PKR vice-president N. Surendran argued that Pandikar has no legal ground to issue the threat, claiming that the Parliament Standing Orders clearly compel the Secretary of the Dewan Rakyat to administer the oath to any MP who has yet to do so.
Second term MP, Tian Chua was even more offende.
“He is not even the Speaker. He was the Speaker for the 12th sitting and it is not him who will swear us in but we will have him sworn in,” he was quoted as saying
The accusations of bias against the Sabah-born Speaker is not new. During the 12th parliamentary sitting, Pandikar’s tenure as the House Secretary was marred with questionable decisions including the suspension of several PR lawmakers at the time.
He was also notorious for dismissing opposition motions including on issues deemed neutral, prompting PR lawmakers to accuse him of being “a Barisan Nasional (BN) spokesman”.
Borneoinsider.com
