COMMENT | Malaysia’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t political solutions

“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.”

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

COMMENT | Former prime minister (twice) Dr Mahathir Mohamad is peddling a new manifesto; Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Azalina Othman Said has finally seen the utilitarian value of bipartisanship, my friend Zaid Ibrahim wants the Agong to act, some folks want reconciliation, some want a unity government, and a cabal of political operatives just want the chaos that comes with a politically weak regime.

All these ideas that seek to steer us out of this mess are anti-democratic and would most probably lead us further down the rabbit hole. What this pandemic has exposed, besides the wobbly guardrails in place, is the reality that Malaysian elected representatives have no desire to face a common enemy but would rather use the pandemic as an excuse to further destabilise democratic norms and institutions, which were already hollowed out after decades of political malfeasance.

Now in any other functional democracy, this would be a problem, but here in Malaysia, the rakyat are used to repressive laws and lip service to democratic norms. Since we never really had to “fight” for our independence and since minorities in this country either place the blame on everything wrong with this country on the voting preference of the majority or ignore the authoritarian values of their power structures, there has never been a clear alternative to the system in place.

All of which is a blessing for this current government...