KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Nurul Izzah Anwar will read out Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s speech in Parliament tomorrow on behalf of the jailed opposition leader who failed to gain permission to attend the current sitting.
However, the Lembah Pantai MP said although the matter has been decided by the Pakatan Rakyat leadership, the coalition will continue to “exhaust all options” to push for her father’s attendance in Parliament as federal opposition leader.
“I will be reading out the speech of the Opposition Leader.
“(But) what we want is his own voice to be heard in the Dewan Rakyat hall,” Nurul Izzah told reporters when met at the Parliament lobby.
PKR chief whip Datuk Johari Abdul said he will meet Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia tomorrow to inform him about the matter as well as to continue finding a way to get Anwar into the Dewan Rakyat for its sitting this week.
“I think the Speaker is busy today, so tomorrow I will meet him,” he told reporters when met at the Parliament lobby here.
Yesterday, Johari confirmed that Pandikar had formally informed him that Anwar’s release from the Sungai Buloh Prison for the parliamentary session that starts tomorrow had been decided by the Home Ministry last week.
On February 10, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s 2014 ruling that had reversed Anwar’s acquittal of sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, also sentencing him to five years’ jail.
Anwar was let out briefly on February 17 to testify in his defamation suit against Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman.
On February 24, Anwar’s family sent a request for royal pardon to delay the disqualification of his Permatang Pauh seat, they also applied to the prison to temporarily release the opposition leader to attend tomorrow’s Parliamentary session.
However, they received a letter on March 4 from the Prisons Department rejecting their application.
