Malaysian politics and royalty have been such that some rulers frequently forget about their respective position as "constitutional" rulers, believing they (those some) have an absolute right to decide on matters political and beyond their "constitutional" powers.
The current choice of the Johor MB is fast becoming an "embarrassment" as UMNO veteran and Johorean Shahrir Samad just said (in disgust).
Shahrir Samad
Whilst popular former MB Hasni Mohamad, UMNO poster boy in the recent Johor state polls is the popular choice for MB and in fact UMNO's pick, it would appear that the Istana's choice is Onn Hafiz Ghazi.
former MB Hasni Mohamad (left) and Onn Hafiz Ghazi
Istana's intrusion into this particular area of politics, the post-election selection and appointment of the state MB, is not a new issue as it happened often in the past. Whilst royal assent to the appointment of the MB is necessary, and only becomes different to political choice in very rare events (eg. appointee is a bankrupt, or with known notorious criminal background, an embarrassment to social, cultural and/or religious norms, etc) the Istana as a "constitutional" rule, does not meddle with the political choice.
Some similar and well-known (but not admired) occurrences happened when Azmin Ali was chosen by HRH to be MB Selangor against the ruling party's choice, Nizar Jamaluddin (PAS but then in Pakatan Rakyat) was chosen by the Perak Regent (now Sultan) as MB Perak, and a couple of other cases in Perlis and Terengganu.
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