Deputy Head of Policy Studies Coordinator of Malaysia Programme, Ariel Tan from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) said that Malaysian citizens are now looking to the king to “serve as a check on the executive, any political adventurism and attempts to overreach and circumvent the parliament and the king’s discretionary powers”. “(The palace’s statement) sought to freeze the frame and keep politics in animated suspension as far as possible by expressing support for the continuation of the current government and stressing the importance of the budget to be tabled in November,” she said.