PUTRAJAYA, Oct 5 ― Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad revealed today he has failed to convince the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong to act on the Citizens' Declaration.
The former prime minister said that during his meeting with the Ruler last month, he was unable to convince the Agong to take any sort of action regarding the 1.2 million signatures he submitted.
“I cannot actually repeat what he said because in confidence. The implication is that what we requested for cannot be implemented,” Dr Mahathir told reporters in a press conference today.
Dr Mahathir said that he mainly spoke about the National Security Act (NSA) and explained to him that if a Ruler is unsure about a law he can refer the matter to the Federal Court.
“We had a long discussion and he questioned me about provisions of the law and I explained. End of it I could not convince him he could act,” Dr Mahathir added
He also said that he tried explaining to the Agong the powers that Rulers have guaranteed under the Federal Constitution which includes appointing and dismissing a prime minister.
“Although I amended the constitution that act of parliament need not get signature to become law but there are certain conditions attached to it. Any act impinges role of ruler cannot be passed without the Agong's signature .
“Among that is the Agong appoints the prime minister and anything that encroaches the duty and role of the ruler cannot be passed without the Agong's signature,” Dr Mahathir stressed.
As the next step, Dr Mahathir said that he had sent a letter out to all the Rulers ahead of their council meeting on October 11.
“In view of rulers council held on 11th. We sent letters to all rulers to appeal behalf of the Rakyat to consider to take action on wrong things done by Najib .
“We want to know if rulers have any opinion about 1MDB and DOJ and what actions should be taken, knowing that,” he added.
The next course of action for the Citizens’ Declaration, Dr Mahathir said will be only be decided upon after the Rulers have met later this month.
“We will wait for them to make a decision first. Then only we will think on what to do next,” he explained.
Dr Mahathir claimed that his Citizens’ Declaration movement had collected over 1.2 million signatures from Malaysians nationwide.
To ensure the legitimacy of each signature, a stringent vetting process was done where over 500,000 signatures were discarded, Dr Mahathir said.
