MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

When a democracy is not a democracy

THERE IS MUCH TALK these days of the great functioning democracy Malaysia is. We have had regular elections since the first in 1955, the people vote without fear or favour, the Opposition, mark you, can stand for election and can even be returned. Look at Kelantan and Trengganu. PAS has won more elections in one state than the National Front (BN) governing coalition, and in power since 1990; in the other since 1990. We have a Parliament that is, we are told, the envy of the developing world. There is freedom of speech; that there is not after speech is a minor inconsistency that governments have to accommodate when there are enough people out there only too happy to challenge the official version of events. The short campaign period is justified as an efficient way to get it over with as soon as possible and get on with the task of running the governmnt and country. The National Front (BN), and its predecessor, the Alliance, is returned like clockwork to Parliament with a two-thirds majority and more. The Opposition is disorganised, disunited, disbelieved which is why it cannot even smell the corridors of power at the centre. Let there be elections in Malaysia for decades to come, and you can be sure of one inalienable fact: the BN would be victorious, the Opposition would show its weaknesses at polling time and be rejected firmly by the electorate.

What is not mentioned in these "self-truths" is that the BN systematically rearranges and realigns the political ground in its favour. The Election Commission is nominally neutral, but it is anything but. The longer the BN is in office, the greater the need to restrict democracy while creating the impression it is as alive in the days of Athenian democracy. One change in the latest amendments to the election rules allow candidates three days to withdraw from the race. Once it had to be done within two hours after the nominations closed. In the past, the frequency with which many a candidate withdrew midway through the campaign to pledge fealty to the BN became a joke but the man remained on the ballot papers, and the sniggers about his withdrawal continued after the polling. BN pays out large sums of money for defection of candidates, once in the millions though it is far more modest nowadays. Another is the gradual raising of the electoral deposit from the RM500 it once was to RM10,000 for parliament and half that for a state constituency. The poorly funded Opposition political parties cannot challenge a governing coalition with unlimited funds. It is said that the BN needs RM3.5 billion for the imminent general election.

So with every general election the Opposition is forced into an even tighter straitjacket. It does not have a proper avenue to protest or negotiate, even in Parliament. Bills are rushed through, on certificates of agency, Parliament, with little time for defeat on an important bill, even amending the constitution, but the bills are often given to MPs as they arrive for the session. That is when Parliament is brought into the government's confidence. But large expenditures, like the RM20 billion for the first phase of the new administrative capital of Putra Jaya, do not come before Parliament for approval. This is because the Malaysian oil company, Petronas, builds it, and its accounts, as an off-budget agency, do not have parliamentary oversight or discussion. When privatised roads are made public, with no tolls payable, the works minister blithely announces compensation in the hundreds of millions, without the need for Parliamentary approval. In other words, the BN is so comfortable governing that it finds Parliament and the Opposition a frightful inconvenience. This bred an arrogance that ignored the naysayers as severely.

It would have continued this way but for how the then Prime Minister, Dato' Seri (now Tun) Mahathir Mohamed, destroyed and humiliated in 1998 his chosen successor, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, now reeling in pain in his cell in Sungei Buloh prison. It caused the first major shift in Malay thinking since independence. The Malay, with his acute sense of justice and fair play, and shocked beyond belief, moved away from UMNO's political and cultural protection. He remains on the sidelines waiting to see who the winner is before he commits himself to that side. UMNO and the coalition it leads, BN, has tried its best to wean them back, without success. It is this that enabled the Opposition political parties, especially PAS, to make headway. The Malay vote is split, and the BN cannot depend on it anymore. Hence in the general election, all focus is on the Chinese vote, now solidly with the BN even if the leaders of the Chinese political parties are in bad odour with the new Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. UMNO's strong-armed control of the BN political partners has no principle behind it, but a vague sense of political unity which is not sustained with reasoned thought. This, to be fair, is not with BN alone. Every political party, in BN and the Opposition, are guilty of it. In the opposition it is not as critical since they do not hold power, and it has the luxury of internal debate. Even then, a few, like the DAP, does not allow too much of it.

What is frightening about Malaysian democracy is that there is no articulate discussion of issues, either because the laws prohibit it without a permit, rarely given, or there is a distinct disinclination not to challenge one's political opponents face-to-face. Anyone who writes critically or Malaysian poliitics and the government is labelled an anti-national, paid by foreigners and worse. Even the party congresses are carefully monitored so that those with a valid criticism of the system would not get a chance to air it. At the same time, policy is determined by the Prime Minister's numerous speeches and comments, accepted at face-value and without reasoned debate. One would find it difficult to single out the intellectuals in any party, except perhaps the Parti Rakyat Malaysia, now merged with the National Justice Party (KeADILan), and the still-unregistered Parti Socialis Malaysia (PSM). UMNO had one leader who was more a thinker than a politician, who today, in his dotage, is all but ignored. In office, he was mocked for his intellectual and thinking qualities. Yet when history comes to be written of the latter half of the 20th century, it is he more than many others who would be remembered, along with the giants of independence.

The recent defections, from the Opposition to UMNO and vice versa, are not defined by principle but often by petty jealousies and anger at being ignored. If this continues, little would change even if the BN is forced into the Opposition. So long it is the superficial that dominates in the politics of this blessed country, it does not matter who is in power, one can be sure nothing would change. It would be a while before principles come to the fore, perhaps a generation later. Today's young men and women do not have the cultural solidity of their parents and grandparents, are in fact foreigners to their own cultures. It is this deculturalisation that should frighten anyone. But few are. They think it is all right to be ersatz Europeans and Americans, lording it over their fellow men who did not have a chance to be educated overseas. It is this alienation that spells danger to Malaysian life. This extends to the political life, their cynicism based not on thought but in a belief nurtured from years of Europeanisation and Americanisation during their student and undergraduate years. If I seem pessimistic, well, I am. They would not support the Opposition on principle, but certainly would if that comes with it the glitter of contracts and professional work. But this is limited to a mollycoddled elite. What frightens me is that those below, as qualified, even in the best universities, are left out because of their background. They are more likely to sharpen their knives than their professional expertise. People harbour their ill-will and frustrations until they can no longer, and force to spill it over on the streets. If they had been engaged and their predicament put within an intellectual framework arrived at by discussion and argument, it could slowdown or even divert the fire. I do not see anyone in present political setup who could, or would. And the democracy the world accepts as bar none could eventually be history.

I wrote this for my column in Seruan Keadilan, the National Justice Party organ, in its latest issue, out today, 08 March 2004

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com