Who will the king pick? – P. Gunasegaram

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AS Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin met the Yang di-Pertuan Agong today just after high noon and news filtered out that the cabinet had already tendered its resignation, pouring rain blanketed the centre of Kuala Lumpur, the Parliament building and the palace.

Whether it would be an omen of tough times to come or a new era washed clean by the need to face tough times under a new leadership would now depend on two things - the wisdom of the king and our members of Parliament (MPs) in whose collective hands lie the choice of the new government.

With Muhyiddin and his cabinet forced into resignation, now the due process to form a new government begins. The constitution gives the power to the king to appoint a new person who in his judgment is likely to command a majority in Parliament.

That’s going to be a complicated process and the king has a tough decision to make which will depend on how events unfold over the next few days. A general election is not an option right now. Who he chooses will dictate how things go moving forward. And who will that be?

The thing to remember is that he may pick someone who does not have a majority yet, effectively giving the chosen one the mandate to get enough MPs to stand beside him. But the person he chooses must have a reasonable chance of forming the government.


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