Monday, May 21, 2018

Separation of Powers

The first point Dr M made in his first official address to PMO departments this morning, was the need to keep the 3 branches of government separate and distinct so that they can each provide a check and balance against the other.

Thank goodness, sanity is returning to Malaysia. This is very good.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

The New Opposition's key imperatives

UMNO, MCA and MIC needs to deconstruct and reconstruct. By his initial public pronouncements, Khairy Jamaludin seems to be one of the UMNO stalwarts who has a finger on the pulse of the changed Malaysian electorate. But, KJ's utterance that UMNO may need to consider transforming into a multiracial party may not be shared by other party members. It is likely that there will be significant numbers in UMNO who actually believe that it was all Najib's fault and, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Ketuanan Melayu and, the apa lagi Cina mahu narrative. The call by Ali Rustam for members not to contest the top positions is a reminder that the lessons of GE14 will take quite some time for UMNO to learn.

Meanwhile, MCA's leaders say that they will consider transforming into a multiracial party. The MIC appears to be licking its wounds without any significant pronouncements.

Before going further on this, let us be reminded that these Barisan Nasional component parties are very wealthy, with shareholdings in various corporations. And, these component parties have a very wide network of branches. With proper leadership and a new brand positioning they are more than capable of becoming a credible and formidable Opposition.

But, so far, there is no evidence of any transformation. These are early days.

If UMNO sticks with its Ketuanan Melayu and, the apa lagi Cina mahu narrative, UMNO will decline further. 

If the MCA quickly transforms into a multiracial party, it has a good chance to come back to life.

Generally, the BN component parties must go beyond nitpicking. They have to be mindful of the rich ironies of their public pronouncements since May 9, 2018. So far, all their statements have been cringeworthy.

For example, when you hear UMNO leaders speak about the need for the Rule of Law you cannot help cringeing and recalling the following-
  1. 3 members of the 1MDB investigative team of the MACC Chief (Abdul Kassim), Bank Negara Governor (Zeti) and, Attorney-General (Gani Patail) were "neutralised";
  2. Gani Patail, in particular, was summarily removed;
  3. The Public Affairs Committee of the Parliament's report on 1MDB was declared an Official Secret, not available to the public;
  4. Jamal and the Red Shirts could do things with impunity while the Yellow-shirted Bersih was yanked on a super-short leash;
  5. And, the list goes on and on and on.
A senior colleague of mine made the observation 2 years ago, about how amazing it was that, in the Malay community there was hardly any moral outrage at the goings on in UMNO and its government. Well, it took a combination of Mahathir, Anwar, Lim Kit Siang, Wan Azizah and their team to spark the moral outrage that straddled all Malaysian communities at all levels.

That said, we should also temper our thoughts with the acknowledgment that even if 60% of the voters went with Pakatan Harapan and PAS, 40% stayed with UMNO-BN. And, 30% of the Malay vote went to PAS.

Inasmuch as Pakatan Harapan is figuring out what went right, UMNO-BN needs to take a brutally honest post-mortem on what went wrong. I know everyone who is anyone has a long litany of categorical bile to list out to UMNO-BN on what went wrong for them. 

The problem is that within UMNO-BN there are still many, many who hold on to the belief that Ketuanan Melayu and, the apa lagi Cina mahu is still relevant.

MCA is attempting a new narrative. I don't see anything coherent yet. But it may come.

UMNO is the interesting one to watch. At the moment, it is highly doubtful that the current crop of UMNO leaders will abandon the Ketuanan Melayu and, the apa lagi Cina mahu narrative.

But, it's early days yet. And, let us remember that Malaysians now, well and truly, live in the era of Hope.

His Majesty's Loyal Opposition

Isn't it a strange expression? His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. It is a reminder of the constitutional system that Malaysia adopted seamlessly and, it would seem, obviously from the British Westminster parliamentary system. It was an exported version, of course. 

The original model in the UK is different from Malaysia's version in many ways. Most significant is that Malaysia has a written constitution and, the UK doesn't. In the UK, their Parliament is supreme. In Malaysia, the Federal Constitution is supreme. What this means is that in Malaysia, all decisions of the government and all laws enacted can, and must, be tested against the Federal Constitution. If the decisions and laws are found to be against any principle or provision of the Federal Constitution, the decision and law will be invalidated and struck down.

As with everything in Life, these structures operate properly only when all humans involved in the process share a common belief in the rules. If we get a leader who wants to transcend the rules and, has the power to flout the rules, then, the system has failed.

In the UK, none of the current players ever question the fundamental rules of their Parliamentary system. That is why their system works well.

Just to digress a little, in the United States of America today, we can see how fragile systems of laws can be. The US found themselves with a President who parachuted in as a rank outsider to their representative democratic processes. He isn't a career politician and legislator. He is a businessman.

To digress further, all businessmen have one core purpose in their business goal. It is to take full and maximum advantage of the system, be it legal or economic, to maximise profits. In our current era, a businessman is, at core, a profiteer. He or she will test the rules and boundaries of the laws of the land and push, and pull, cajole, compromise, lubricate and do whatever that needs to be done, to maximise profits. Equally important is to understand that within the organisation he created, a businessman is a dictator or, at the very least, a benevolent despot. Don't be fooled by the conventional wisdom of corporate and business literature when they extol ethics and social responsibility; that's just propanganda. Make no profit and incur losses, you fail and you're out. That is the Damoclean Sword that a businessman lives by. And, the US elected someone with that background and experience. The diplomatic phrase for such a person who now acts as the US President is that he is a transactional leader

So, in a Third World, polyglot and multi-racial community like Malaysia and, with an imported system of laws, people who are used to feudal values and imperial dictates still cannot understand what a Constitutional, Monarchical, Parliamentary system means. Many Malaysian of voting age still believe that voting is a superficial act. What is important to them is that there is a feudal lord who will provide them with beneficence in exchange for with they must offer their gratitude.

You can imagine how fertile that ground is for abuse of power, whatever the system of laws.

To lesser minds operating within Malaysia's constitutional system as politicians or political operatives, due to lack of credible opposition and, a bullying Juggernaut approach to democracy, these lesser minds chose to ignore the basis of the Federal Constitution. They chose to retain the old habits feudalism.

With such an attitude, any attempts to audit the decisions of government was portrayed as treasonous, seditious and, generally "unlawful". So, he who inhabits the position of power may not be opposed. Any opposition was an act of lawlessness.

Between 1981 and 2003, Dr M led UMNO and, by dint of habit, therefore, assumed the position of Prime Minister of Malaysia. During those 22 years, he behaved as an iconoclast. By his actions, he initiated a mindset within UMNO that laws could be bent and moulded to strengthen powers and reduce opposition. During those 22 years, the Executive branch of government grew manifold times. To be fair, in the modern age, the Executive branch of government has grown throughout the world in response to the increasing complexity of modern societies. But, in Malaysia, such Executive growth had ominous undertones.

Opposition political leaders and civil society leaders were incarcerated. This was the habit of the Malaysian government as it was in many Third World countries.

When he relinquished power in 2003, there was a brief spring under Abdullah Badawi. That spirit was initially retained by Najib. But, the atmosphere quickly descended into a defensive mindset.

That defensive mindset led to a quick stocktake of the powers vested in the Executive branch of government. Very quickly UMNO found a motherload of precedents and powers initiated during the Mahathir era.

3 major examples of Mahathir-era authoritarian behaviour comes to mind. Firstly, the double confrontation with the monarchy. Second, was the sacking of the head of the Judiciary and 5 senior judges. Third, was Operation Lallang that placed numerous Opposition political leaders and civil society leaders under preventive detention.

By this thread, the summary dismissal of Gani Patail as the Attorney-General of Malaysia points to a Mahathir-era Executive Juggernaut approach to dealing with recalcitrants.

This raises a question. Was Mahathir one of the lesser minds aluded to earlier in this blog entry? The answer would be in the affirmative. It was often said, that Dr M, being a non-lawyer (and, therefore, unlike his 3 predescessors, Tunku, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn) did not, or refused to, understand the principles of the Westminster system enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

The Banyan tree metaphor used to describe Lee Kuan Yew's leadership in Singapore could equally apply to Dr M. The point was that nothing grew under the large and dark shadow of a Banyan tree. In Malaysia, the consequence of 22 years of Mahathir led to a large and growing coterie of sycophants and even lesser minds who believed that their positions in government was a feudal right and privilege. It was an entitlement and, a brith right.

This mindset was supported by a voting population that could be moulded like putty. Invoke the Yellow Peril of the dastardly Chinaman who will rob you blind and fear was instilled.

We also cannot and, should not, ignore the fact that during the Najib era, it was Dr M who wrote the narrative of the Yellow Peril through the machinations of Perkasa. Even after Dr M fell out with Najib, the narrative of the Yellow Peril proved to be an effective weapon used by UMNO.

Is Dr M a different person today? I don't think so. I believe most Malaysians know this to be the case. But, horses for causes, Malaysians chose well. The motley crew created by the charisma of Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang and Wan Azizah with the spirited support of many, many intelligent, dynamic and youthful leaders combined with Dr M and his strong credibility within the Malay community proved to be a tipping point to cause an incredible outcome; the destruction of the UMNO Juggernaut.

This is a long preamble and I haven't dealt with the original point, the possible routes to reconstruction of the component parties of Barisan Nasional. They, together with PAS, are now His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Let's deal with it later. Now, Life beckons.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Time to restore Internet freedom in Malaysia

I presume this will be done in due course, but, a little more haste would be good. Let's restore Malaysia's internet access to where it was before Salleh Said Keruak screwed it up with this stupid image-


GST removal and the Malaysian economy

There has been a large amount of reportage by so-called analysts who have expressed concern over the Pakatan Harapan election promise to dismantle the Goods and Services Tax regime. To my mind this so-called concern is borne of laziness on the part of the analysts. Worse still, the so-called concern reflects a marked lack of understanding of Malaysia's National Budget in the recent 5 years.

Anyone with sufficient focus and industry would not have missed the ballooning Operating Expense portion of Malaysia's National Budget. With some effort, one can find enough items that can be pared down. I would hazard a guess that much of the National Budget was leaked due to corrupt practices.

Other parts of the National Budget involved massive (mis-)allocations to ministries and agencies for use in different types of disbursements and grants that lacked accountability.

Plug these items earnestly and the massive fiscal deficit spending will be pared down significantly. Malaysia may not see a budget surplus immediately. But, my hunch is that future fiscal deficits will be due to growth imperatives in sectors such as education, tourism and agriculture where targeted fiscal spending will boost knowledge, skills and relevant infrastructure that will multiply Malaysia's economic growth instead of useless monetary handouts that feed Malaysians for a short spell of weeks without any lasting benefits.

This is where I completely agree that the new economic team that is being put in place by the Pakatan Harapan federal government will not be so stupid as to dismantle the GST without a plan.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

A new era starts for Malaysia

Malaysians are entering into a new era with the victiory of the Pakatan Harapan coalition. This is a good thing.

Congratulations to all of us, Malaysians, for wanting a common better future.