Published by Malaysiakini, images from Malaysiakini.
Ooi Kee Beng, the executive director of the Penang Institute, is something of a titan among Malaysian public intellectuals. Of all his many achievements, my personal favourite is the choice of URL for his website – truly brilliant: www.wikibeng.com.
He recently wrote an article entitled ‘Limiting the political class should be the ultimate goal for reformists’. By the second paragraph, I was excitedly looking forward to comments on problems that I agree are at the heart of what ails us as a nation.
By the end of it, I was not entirely sure the article ultimately delivered as much as it could. Being not as qualified as Ooi, it took me a while to reach the end – the language being a little more turgid than I am used to.
Innocent jab aside, I think buried beneath some very complex concepts, Ooi touches on some important points, to which I would presume to add my two cents.
I think the first important point Ooi makes is that Malaysia’s core political problems are cross-partisan. I agree with his assessment that our problem is a politico-cultural one.
The fancy term aside, I would surmise this as such: that there exists a Malaysian political culture, which is practised on both sides of the aisle. I have always hated cynicism, so I obviously would never agree with the oft-heard statement that “all politicians are the same”.
That said, it would be naive to ignore certain truths – among them, that many (not all) politicians share certain traits, especially in Malaysia.
There is no space here to describe all these traits in detail. Some of the more important ones include the way politicians think about money, about corrupt or semi-corrupt political financing, and about an abusive relationship between government and partisan politics.
Optimal reform paths
Needless to say, it would be best for Malaysia if we could get rid of some of these bad practices and political culture. The question is, obviously, how?
Ooi writes: “Politicians are here to serve the public, more or less the way civil servants are supposed to do. Politicians should not be superstars; they should not be celebrities. And their ultimate goal should be to make themselves redundant.”
I am sure Ooi is neither naive nor an excessive idealist. I think the most interesting discussions about political reforms are short on “shoulds” and long on “hows”.
I think it is less useful to discuss what politicians should be (a nearly endless list), and more useful to understand why politicians act the way they do, and how we can most effectively influence their behaviour.
I feel the biggest missing piece in Ooi’s article is the question of incentive structures. Politicians should not be superstars, but almost all of them aspire to be one – not just in Malaysia, but worldwide. That should come as no surprise, as the reasons are fairly obvious.
National elections do not (again, disregarding the “should” here) differ as much as we might think from, say, high school elections. Democracies are in essence popularity contests.
Here, one cannot help but think of two quotes on democracy popularly attributed to Winston Churchill (inaccurately, it would appear) concerning how it is “the worst form of government except for all the others”, and that “the best argument against democracy is five minutes of conversation with the average voter”.
The latter view is, of course, a little condescending, but it speaks to the heart of democracy’s many imperfections. How can we forget, after all, that we live in a world which elected Donald Trump as president of America?
Identifying correct structural incentives in politics and how to transition to them would be a worthwhile lifetime’s work. Here, I think we can only say that Malaysian politicians act and talk the way they do because they believe the system will reward their actions.
If we want them to act differently – to behave more like the statesmen Ooi talks about – the crucial pivotal point is whether we can reform Malaysia’s political system so as to create different incentive structures.
Are by-elections a waste?
Space will perhaps permit us to briefly discuss two other contemporary matters Ooi raised in his article: by-elections and the Economic Action Council (EAC).
Ooi writes: “By-elections being treated as general elections is a case in point. These are often minor events really, but since they happen so often, they are easily used by the political class to sustain a sense of political campaigning in the long period between one general election and the next. That way, they help distract from the hard technocratic work that good governance should be.”
In essence, I heartily agree. We all know that whoever is elected in Semenyih today will, legislatively speaking, have little or no impact on the major currents of Malaysian politics.
The vast resources that Malaysian political parties pour into by-elections suggest almost the exact opposite, however – the somewhat haphazard announcement of new toll policies being an example of how Pakatan Harapan was acting as though entire states or the federal government itself was at stake.
In this Ooi is fairly accurate in his description of how the political class seems to calculate things very differently, and generally in a way that does not benefit the nation.
To such political classes, what outside observers may consider a small, temporary spike in perception after the by-election (whether positive or negative towards one political coalition or the other) is exaggerated to become matters of near life and death.
This disproportionate view causes politicians to act in ways which may sacrifice long-term gains for short-term ones – though again, this is a political phenomenon which is not limited to Malaysia or to by-elections.
A radical solution to the problem of distracting by-elections is for the government to boycott them, as the ultimate pros and cons list may look different if you remove the narrow interests of the political class.
Ooi also comments on the EAC, describing it as “an attempt to rebalance politics and technocracy such that the former is reduced in importance, and the voice of experts and technocrats made directly relevant to the formulation and implementation of policies”.
I agree with Ooi that such rebalancing is good but am not entirely convinced that this is what the EAC represents.
There are, after all, five politicians on the EAC and there was political controversy over who was appointed (or not appointed) and why. Instead of ad hoc appointments such as the EAC, which may appear to some as having an element of vague arbitrariness, perhaps there are alternatives.
Zero experience
If we truly want to go down the technocrat route that Ooi advocates, perhaps we should consider something akin to the American system.
Under our Westminster system, the cabinet is chosen predominantly from members of the legislative – generally consisting of high-ranking party members who have won a seat in parliament. Their expertise in their given ministry is often a secondary consideration, if at all.
In America, the cabinet is appointed not from elected representatives in the legislative but theoretically from a pool of experts in a given cabinet portfolio.
This ensures that each federal portfolio is headed by a recognised expert in the field, as opposed to someone who may have as little as zero experience in the portfolio he or she is chosen to head.
Ooi’s discussion of the political class and political culture definitely touches the heart of what ails Malaysian politics today. He is also right to ask whether the grip corruption and negative practices have on Malaysian politics can be loosened.
Again, I believe the key, however, lies in questions of incentive structures in Malaysian politics. In looking at reforms and innovations in the field of incentives, we should consider a wide range of options, including the most fundamental questions of how we choose our leaders.
Ooi’s colleague at the Penang Institute, Wong Chin Huat, has written extensively on innovating our electoral system. This is definitely one way to make some major changes with regard to political incentive structures.
Hopefully, think-tanks will continue to look into how we can influence political behaviour, not by depending on the goodness of politician’s hearts but by reforming the structures and landscape in which they operate.
Nathaniel Tan is Director of Media & Communications at EMIR Research, an independent think-tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based upon rigorous research.
