Toppled Perak Menteri Besar NizarJamaluddin has exhausted all the avenues available to him in his legal battle to reclaim the post of menteri besar when the Federal Court, despite the opinion of many constitutional experts, reputable past judges and the people in general, saw it fit to rule 5-0 against his appeal.

The verdict, though shocking, was not unexpected going by recent trends taking shape in the higher courts in the country. Although far from being satisfied with the verdict, which Nizar described as unjust, he nevertheless accepted it out of respect for the courts.

It was a positive move by Nizar and the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leadership to give up further trying to remove Barisan Nasional’s (BN) Zambry Abdul Kadir as the menteri besar and move on and work towards becoming a strong opposition in the state assembly. Pakatan has pledged to work with the BN to serve the people provided certain conditions are met.

After all, it does not matter how Pakatan serves the people as long as it does so effectively either as the government or the opposition? As Pakatan has an equal number of seats in the state assembly, it can stop the power-abuse and corruption that have become rampant in our system. Pakatan can provide an effective two-coalition system to provide the necessary check and balance for the BN government.

The courts could have decided who the MB should be but the constitutional problems in Perak are far from over as the rightful party who should decide this would be the people. Zambry would soon discover that the real people who should have chosen him should have been Perakians and not the prime minister, sultan or the courts as working without the people’s mandate.

The wisest thing for him to do would be to seek the mandate of the people through a snap election which is what the majority of Perakians want. In fact, a recent Merdeka Centre survey revealed that over 75% of the Perakians want fresh polls to elect their new government. Zambry says he is ready to serve the people but how can he do so if he chooses to ignore the wishes of the people?

Meanwhile, Nizar can rest assured that the people will not forget the good he has done during his short tenure as MB. They will not forget the way his government was toppled. They will not forget how he and his assembly persons, especially the speaker, had been humiliated. They will not forget that the power grab was unconstitutional and morally wrong. He can rest assured that the people are mature enough to make the right choice the next time around when he may be  assured a bigger majority.

His honesty, simplicity and multi-racial platform has already won him the hearts of the people of all races in and outside the state. He is proving himself as a potential top national leader for all Malaysians . All he has to do is continue to serve the people by placing the people’s interest above all regardless of race or religion.

There is also a need for the members of Pakatan -DAP, PAS and PKR - to re-look at the relationship among them. They must consolidate further their mutual bonds in the coalition that has been under tremendous strain of late. They should strengthen their common stand and not magnify the few differences among them. It would be national tragedy if they lose all that we have gained due to the selfishness and greed of a few among them.

The members of the Pakatan coalition, in particular the DAP with its predominantly Chinese membership, should be patient and not rush to bring about changes as that would create suspicions on the part of the  more conservative members in PAS and the Malays in PKR. Of course, its political opponents are only too happy to capitalise on such suspicions created.

The DAP must reassure the Malays that it is not in any way a threat to their political, religious and economic interests. In fact it must go out of its way to prove it has no hidden racial agenda of its own by helping the deserving Malays and Indians with the same enthusiasm with which it helps the Chinese.

It should go the extra mile to prove that it is colour-blind in dealing with the people of various ethnicity. This will also go a long way to prove that the Perak MB who has to be Malay will not be a puppet of the Chinese-dominated DAP as Nizar was specifically accused of by Umno.

The next general elections are not very far away and this time around the people are wiser and more mature to know who is right and who is not. With the cyber-media playing an increasingly important role in the lives of Malaysians, they are not going to be easily duped into believing all the propaganda that they see and hear. They will have their own discerning minds and they will definitely choose the right people to form the next government.