COMMENT Yesterday’s second instalment of this retrospective of the ‘Kajang Move’ used the lens of consistency and proper procedure to examine the Kajang Move up to the point where Abdul Khalid Ibrahim was sacked from PKR.

Today’s final instalment employs the same lens and continues from that point, focusing on the very controversial subject of constitutional monarchy.

Once PAS as a party withdrew its support for Khalid, the formal conditions for his removal (according to Khalid’s view of proper procedure) had finally been met.

He tendered his resignation to the Sultan, thus removing himself from being any factor at all from that point onwards.

After this point, the primary conflict seemed to be about whether the palace should accept Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as menteri besar - a question that continues to reverberate. How do questions of consistency and proper procedure apply here?

I completely agree that in a democratic, constitutional monarchy, the people (technically speaking, only their representatives in a state assembly or in Parliament, unfortunately) should have the most say as to who their chief executive is.

In the general conceptualisation of constitutional monarchy, the monarch is not imagined to play a significant role in picking and choosing a chief executive. This is the theory of constitutional monarchy.

Let us now examine the reality in Selangor by looking at the relevant provision of the Selangor Constitution verbatim, Article 53 (2) (a), which states :

“His Highness shall first appoint as Mentri Besar to preside over the State Executive Council, a member of the Legislative Assembly who in His judgment is likely to command the confidence of the majority of the members of the Assembly.”

The pivotal phrases here are “in His judgment”, “is likely”, and “command the confidence”.

Mechanism needed to test majority support

My contention is thus simple: The Selangor Sultan acted completely within the powers afforded to him by the constitution. That said, I believe there is plenty of space to improve the Selangor constitution in such a way that will avoid a repeat of the Selangor crisis.

Unlike many who have very strong, albeit private, misgivings about Malaysian monarchs and the role they play, I believe that this improvement can be done without being a direct challenge to the monarchy.

My primary point is this: the constitution should be amended to necessitate a clear, unambiguous and democratic test to determine who commands the majority in the state assembly - most likely by way of a vote in the state assembly itself.

In the event that it is not clear as to who commands said majority, there should be a provision that necessitates this test in a manner that leaves no room for doubt.

As far as I can tell, this would truly solve all the legal and democratic ambiguities that have been at the root of Selangor’s protracted menteri besar crisis.

An ambiguous majority, at best

The weekend before Azmin Ali ascended his seat as the new menteri besar, there was a mad flurry of people trying to push the sultan to appoint Wan Azizah, on the basis of her ‘proven’ majority.

Saifuddin Nasution ( left ) released a statement every day, repeating exactly the same thing in each statement, and every Anwar Ibrahim-affiliated or anti-Azmin group and NGO were tripping over themselves, trying to somehow demand that the sultan accedes to Wan Azizah.

I felt a little bad for them when Wan Azizah and Anwar in the end meekly accepted the sultan’s decision to appoint Azmin, with nothing more than a footnote of ‘protest’ that effectively had zero significance.

On this subject, we must examine, in very careful detail, Wan Azizah’s claim of commanding the majority. All her supporters insisted she had the support of 30 assemblymen, but on what basis was this claim made?

‘I’m anti-Khalid, not pro-Azizah’

Everybody seemed to forget the PAS man who crossed over, Azmin supporter Saari Sungib’s “I’m anti-Khalid, not pro-Azizah” statements . He said this as early as Aug 21 and repeated the sentiment exactly one month later.

Some may say that to the best of Wan Azizah’s knowledge, those 30 statutory declarations signed by the assemblypersons are still valid, no matter what the comments in public.

I would accept that argument from anyone who also believes that when Khalid went to the sultan after he was sacked from PKR, he was correct in saying that to the best of his knowledge, he still commanded the majority of the assembly.

In the end, by the time the palace gave clear indications it did not want Wan Azizah, I’d bet that had it come to a vote, not even all of PKR’s 13 assemblymen would have voted for Wan Azizah. Too many stood to gain from supporting Azmin instead. This is why no one seemed to want to call for a sitting of the state assembly.

Of course, that is just speculation - which brings us back to my original point: the law should necessitate a clear, unambiguous test of majority support.

Consistency with Perak, Terengganu and Perlis

I remember being outside the Perak state assembly during the Perak crisis, being one of many concerned Malaysians being chased away violently by the police. I remember the Pakatan-led uproar at the time.

It was thus truly appalling to hear Pakatan politicians and sympathisers now quoting the highly controversial Perak crisis court rulings as precedent that should compel the sultan of Selangor to accept Wan Azizah’s statutory declarations (SDs) as proof of her majority.

How sad, after all we fought for in Perak, to now hear Perak being used by Pakatan itself as the standard for what is right.

Given the uproar of civil society, one may think that this was the first time a party’s candidate for menteri besar was rejected by the palace - I certainly almost did.

In fact, this happened in not one, but two states in 2008 - Terengganu and Perlis. For some reason, groups like Bersih and other NGOs did not seem to leap to the defence of Idris Jusoh or Shahidan Kassim, even though they too clearly commanded the majority of the state assemblies. Had they done so, surely that would have strengthened their arguments in Selangor.

How many wrongs does it take to make a right?

In making these comments, I want to try my best not to partake of a race to the bottom. Time and time again, throughout the Selangor crisis, I found myself asking: How many wrongs does it take to make a right?

I think this was at the heart of problem with the Kajang Move. At so many points, the various players had an opportunity to set things right, but each move and counter-move seemed just to employ more wrongs in a vain attempt to achieve what each wanted - rather than what was right.

Having written extensively on this subject, I am also reminded of how, within our current culture and when faced with a difficult question, the fashion is not to answer the question, but to attack the questioner.

Uncountable wrongs later, we are even further from what was right than when we started.

As we are surrounded by endless reasons to be cynical, I believe the primary lesson of the Kajang Move is that no good will ever come of putting politics before principles.

The current players are trapped in a downward spiral that may result in Pakatan one day defeating BN, only to replace it with the same brand of feudalism that ruined Malaysia in the first place - the ultimate Animal Farm scenario.

Perhaps the most important lesson of the Kajang Move boils down to this: if we want something different, then it falls to you and I - not just politicians - to be something different.

On Monday: Kajang lessons - feudalism can't beat feudalism

Yesterday: Kajang lessons 2 - many wrongs to make a right

NATHANIEL TAN is now trying to ‘insaf dan bertaubat’ by replacing his King Julian writing style with something less emotional and more mature. This includes his tweets @NatAsasi.