PETALING JAYA, JUNE 19- Pakatan Rakyat will not be boycotting the parliament swearing-in ceremony on June 24 nor its subsequent sittings, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim confirmed today.
Instead, the PKR de facto leader said, Pakatan parliamentarians would be making use of the first day in the Dewan Rakyat to nominate their choice of speaker, ex-judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman.
“We have to nominate a speaker, so of course we can’t boycott the swearing-in ceremony,” he told a press conference at the party’s headquarters here.
He said he did not want parliament to be reduced to a “rubberstamp” and have all the BN MPs nominate a speaker who represented Umno’s interests.
“The cannot bulldoze people who are clearly impartial in the seat. We want a man or a woman of integrity who is fiercely independent, and this is why we have submitted Abdul Kadir Sulaiman’s name,” said Anwar.
Rumours have been swirling the past weeks that Pakatan MPs would boycott the swearing-in ceremony to protest the allegedly irregularities and fraud in the general election.
Malaysiakini reported on June 7 that Anwar was mulling a boycott, citing the fact he had not submitted any parliamentary questions.
But Anwar dismissed this, saying: “I believe in the true spirit of parliamentary democracy, and we Pakatan MPs need to be consulted in parliament for true democracy to take place.”
He said Pakatan had decided only to boycott the parliamentary briefing on June 11.
