"I have, even through the electoral defeat of 2018, maintained that democracy is only as strong as its actors. That also means that one should always be ready to accept defeat and exit gracefully. One can’t say one believes in democracy and yet be ready to do whatever it takes to remain in power."
Teks penuh ucapan saya di Malaysia Democracy Forum pada 30 Mac 2021:
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies & gentlemen
Democracy: a doctrine most defined and redefined by scholars, used and misused by politicians, celebrated and abused through the test of time as written in history.
The debate never stops from Plato - whose disdain has defined democracy as a matter of opinion over the mighty knowledge – to the French philosopher De Tocqueville who recognized the inevitability of democracy. But still, he warned us against tyranny of the majority.
Leaders and thinkers, too, have made the noun democracy to sometimes sound promiscuous - casting aspersions rendering it to be purely rhetorical. Sukarno’s guided democracy, El Jefe with his neo democracy, Franco with his organic democracy - to name a few.
But if at all we are about to learn anything from the French revolution, Oliver Holmes’ sarcasm was not far off the mark: democracy is what the crowd wants.
Are we hearing this? Where do we now stand, democratically speaking?
To know where we are, we must know where we came from. Democracy in Malaysia has had its roots since 1867 with the establishment of the Straits Settlement Legislative Council following its jurisdictional transfer from English East India Company to the Colonial Office. The first office of its kind to hold debates and discussions on the affairs of its member state, the council showed characteristics of a modern Parliament.
But, the birth of our modern democracy only truly began during the Post Japanese Occupation period which culminated into our fight for independence, and subsequently the formation of Malaysia in 1963.
The Cobbold Commission that played a huge role in laying the foundations of our democracy was in fact part of the democratic process.
In trying to understand our democracy, learning about its birth is not enough. As citizens of Malaysia, we must also learn about the system in its infancy, its teething pain, what ails the democracy today, and how do we go about restoring the faith in the democracy again.
We are a Federal Constitutional Monarchy. It has a parliamentary system of government headed by a Prime Minister, selected through periodic, multiparty elections. The Federal Constitution was legislated to help bring into existence the conditions for the system to exist. The separation of the administrative powers into three parts, which are the Legislative, the Judiciary and the Executive is one such condition.
In 1963, during the formation of Malaysia, the Malayan Parliament was adopted as the Parliament of Malaysia. When Singapore left in 1965, their Legislative Assembly became their Parliament and it ceased to be represented in the Parliament of Malaysia. Much of what I have said is now part of our history and its upon us to learn about our democracy.
But it wasn’t all sunshine for Malaysia.
Our democracy saw the first suspension of parliament from the year 1969 to 1971 in the aftermath of the May 13 riot. The National Operation Council (NOC) was convened right after the declaration of emergency and the suspension of parliament in 1969.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happen, how incapable must a man be in learning from history.”
Today, we are living through another suspension of parliament. Justified or not, only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: the powers that be have shown us how incapable man are at learning from history.
If two suspensions weren’t enough, time has a way of testing our infantile democracy yet again through the 1988 judicial crisis. This was when the then Prime Minister wrestled the power of the Judiciary away from its rightful owner, the Judicial Branch. Then on, the head of government at the time began discharging justice on his own, thereby becoming his own judge, jury and executioner.
Of the trials that our democracy has weathered, none has been as challenging as the recent Langkah Sheraton: a move that invited the question of legitimacy of a sitting Government. And it doesn’t stop at that. While it is allowed by the provisions of the Federal Constitution, the morality of such a move continues to be questioned.
Let me make it clear, we - UMNO and Barisan Nasional, that our position was unambiguous. We wanted parliament to be dissolved to return the mandate to the rakyat. However, the rulers refused. So we were left with no option but to support the current government for one year with a condition that at the expiration of the stipulated time, a fresh election must be held.
But since the current government has failed to honour this one-year condition, we are now left with the tyranny of the minority as parliament cannot be dissolved during the current state of emergency.
Make no mistake, Malaysia is the only country in the world that has suspended parliament and suspended the constitution with the excuse that we need to fight Covid.
To make matters worse, the current government gave the excuse that there are too many old people in parliament to refuse holding parliament sessions despite the Yang di-Pertuan Agong saying that parliament can resume during the emergency.
As the English would say…BOLLOCKS.
The Sheraton Move saw a number of people - under the guise of saving the country and upholding democracy - leaving their parties and declaring support for the formation of the current government. Party-hopping, while legally permissible, opened the Pandora’s box with the question: should one be able to do something that is legally permissible while knowing that it is morally questionable?
Make no mistake, UMNO and BN was part of that move as well. However, UMNO was not guided by the idea of preserving power and influence.
I have, even through the electoral defeat of 2018, maintained that democracy is only as strong as its actors. That also means that one should always be ready to accept defeat and exit gracefully. One can’t say one believes in democracy and yet be ready to do whatever it takes to remain in power.
Earlier, I quoted Plato - whose disdain has defined democracy as a matter of opinion over the mighty knowledge.
Therefore, I am forced to agree that the current democracy in this country is flawed. Democracy can truly live up to its meaning for as long as we give the voters accurate information and not be inundated by propaganda and untruth spread by political agents. Prior to GE14 the voters were misled with slews of misinformation and lies.
For example until today, those that accuse and oppose me has never dare confirm publicly that RM2.6 billion in my accounts was subsequently returned to the sender 4 months later, and that at least RM642 million was received in my accounts directly from the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Finance’s bank account as was revealed repeatedly in court; I was also accussed of killing Altantuya and Kevin Morais; my wife was accused of buying a pink diamond, the country is bankrupt and that GST is an evil taxation system. But, all these too were already subsequently proven untrue in the courts or in parliament.
But none of this was ever explained by the opposition including those who first threw these accusations at me.
As a result, up until present day, there are still people who believe in these accusation because the opposition then never bothered to explain the truth. What version of democracy were the opposition living in?
Therefore, those who truly believe in democracy must not allow these untruths to continue to deceive the voters.
I firmly believe that voters must be given the true version of events and not be lied to. That is why I have yet to be sued by anyone in court for spreading untruths despite making more than 6,000 posts on my social media accounts since the last General Election.
As true believers of democracy let us move on from here and ensure that the information we deliver to the people are true and that we take personal responsibility to dispel the untruths...
Together, let’s prove Plato wrong as we move to a future of honest politics with well-informed and correctly-informed voters.
The ailments that plague our democracy are many, from party-hopping to political funding, and to voters’ registration. There is no simple panacea to fix this. I believe, and have always maintained, that a structural reform must be put in place if we want to have a sliver of chance to fix our democracy. I propose, to do this we must look no further than addressing 3 key concerns which are:
1) Party-hopping
2) Political Funding
3) Expanding Voter Base
In the next few minutes, lend me your ears as I outline the steps I believe will lay the foundation in creating the remedy to cure the sickness that plagues our democracy.
First, we must address the elephant in the room: party-hoppers. Again, we should ask ourselves, is it right to do what is legally permissible but ethically questionable? Any proponent of democracy will say that it is within the liberty of an individual to throw weight behind the ideas or person that is in line with their position. But the move does have its repercussions. We must be reminded that as Member of Parliament, our decisions carry more weight than of those around us.
In understanding that, we must be aware that to normalizing party-hopping as a means to an end, is akin to us telling the people that it is ok to switch loyalty as long as it serves our purpose. Is that the message we want people to remember us by?
Party-hopping, while it isn’t new, first saw the light of day in 2008, when the opposition claimed that they had enough parliamentary support to topple the government and urged the Prime Minister to give up power peacefully. They needed to get 30 more MPs to add to his current lineup of 82 MPs. Fortunately - or unfortunately as the case might be - this trend of enticing MPs to switch sides hasn’t stopped since then. The Sheraton Move was ultimately a manifestation of the disease.
Party-hopping, for all intents and purposes, must be tackled before any meaningful reform can hope to see the light of day. To do so, we must look into the case of Nordin Salleh vs Wan Mohamed Najib. The case involved state assemblymen in Kelantan who won their seats on the strength of the Semangat 46 ticket in 1990, but subsequently defected to UMNO in 1991. Following that, the State Legislative amended the state constitution and passed an Anti–Hopping Law.
Both seats were declared vacant and both individuals lost their seats in the by-election that followed. However, they sought legal redress and was reinstated as assemblymen when the Supreme Court decided that the amendments were in contradiction with Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of association of an individual.
That decision became the bedrock upon which party-hoppers justify their actions.
That decision, ladies and gentlemen, encapsulates the challenges we face in establishing any anti-hopping law to curb party-hopping. Again, it begs the question, should one continue what is legally permissible but ethically questionable?
Fast track to present times. To date, 40 MPs have changed their allegiance since GE 14, with 2020 seeing 4 states changing administration due to party-hoppers. Why do I want to talk about this? Because the more we normalize party-hopping, the more damage it will do, not only to our democratic process, but also to our country as a whole. Since 2008, no effective means nor a remedy has been put in place to curb this practice even when we know the instability it creates for the country.
The cycle continues until today. Despite all the talk that party-hopping has done to create stability, it has been shown to be otherwise. Our country is not faring any better today than it did post GE 14 in May 2018. Certainly not so if the recent economic figures are to be taken into account. Party-hopping invites and creates instability. It is as simple as that.
One need not look any further for signs of instability than the fact that Malaysia attracted an FDI inflow of US$13.5 billion (RM56.02 billion) for 2017, higher than Indonesia (US$4.5 billion), Vietnam (US$12.6 billion) and the Philippines (US$8.7 billion).
However, based on a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report, Malaysia’s FDIs fell 68% to a meagre US$2.5 billion last year, while Indonesia attracted a whopping US$18 billion in FDIs. Malaysia is performing worse than our neighbouring countries.
Party-hopping and the following Proclamation of Emergency have left the Government with an unchecked ability to continue to borrow money without detailing how and where they are going to spend it. It is one thing to borrow money - anyone can do that. But are they doing it with careful planning and consideration for the future fiscal position of the country? To date there have been RM 54 billion new borrowings over the past 3 months alone!
Where is the money going and how is it being spent?
Yet, today we have people triumphantly going around town saying how the Government has effectively managed the pandemic and how party-hopping has had little effect on the economy in the greater scheme of things. Net foreign investment has gone down by RM 17.8 billion in 2020 as compared to the previous year. That isn’t the worse of our woes. In May, IBM will shut down its operations in Cyberjaya. Since 2018, we have seen Western Digital, Johnson & Johnson, Hyundai, and IBM shutting down their operation in Malaysia.
In all my years of experience and from all the economic journals and articles that I have read over decades, never have I ever come across anyone saying “Hey, that country has declared emergency and suspended its parliament. Therefore, this is the best time to invest and start a new business there”.
What is then the solution to this?
My fellow Member of Parliament, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz has mooted the idea of adopting a party-list system. This essentially outlines that the seat stays with the party should the sitting MP decide to defect to another party and thereby allowing for the government to stay intact despite the defections. On top of that, this suggestion could potentially save the taxpayers millions of Ringgit by doing away with the need to hold by-elections.
By any means, this is not a one size fits all solution. Any and all considerations to regulate party-hopping must be met with intense scrutiny to ensure that the livelihood of the many is not jeopardised by the interests of the few. As we talk about party-hopping and defection, its only right to look at the reasons as to why an MP should choose to do so.
An MP when taking oath in parliament has sworn that his solemn duty, first and foremost, is to defend the Federal Constitution before their constituencies, but the Proclamation of Emergency has suspended the Constitution itself. What then are MPs supposed to defend?
Are we now to defend to right to switch loyalties? Of course, I am being sarcastic…
Driven by the need to provide for their voters to secure a political base going into the next election, MPs may and can be swayed to swing the way that benefits them and their voters.
Much has been said by MPs who have defected about doing this in the name of service to their voters - that only goes to prove that the ability to serve their constituency is dependent on a combination of both financial prowess and political capital. This, has been argued, is what nudges MPs into making such decision.
The next point that I want to touch on is political donation. Now, before every one of you gets excited, I particularly want to talk about the need to enact an Act of Parliament that regulates political donation and funding. The reality is, conducting political activities, just like any activity, involves cost. And with cost comes the act of raising funds to cover that.
If you are a business entity, you raise funds via selling equity, debts and through various fundraising activities. But the question is, how does a political party do that, and do that at a scale large enough to cover the cost associated with running it?
But the real question isn’t that. The real question is how do political parties do that while maintaining its independence from the forces that supports its survival? How does a political party do this while ensuring that democracy isn’t tugged by invisible strings lying around in the shadows, benefiting the few at the cost of many.
Democracy like I have mentioned, is the will of the many. Other activities trying to subjugate the vox populi via secret influences, by way of political funding, and buying influences must not be allowed. To this end, following footsteps of more mature democracies around the globe, I mooted the idea of a Political Funding Act in 2014. I believed then, as I still do today, that political funding must be regulated for parties across the spectrum lest we are to condemn the fate of our democracy to the back-room dealings amongst vested interests.
I believed then, as I do and now, that we must continue to improve our standard of democracy. To that end, on top of my commitment to introduce the Political Funding Act. I also have made it a mission to repeal the much vilified and most abused draconian law, Internal Securities Act (ISA). And I succeeded in doing so in 2011.
In 2015, we created a committee called the National Consultative Committee of Political Financing with the idea that the findings of this committee will pave the way for a comprehensive Political Funding Act. I genuinely believe that this is the cornerstone that will safeguard our democracy from forces that attempts to shape the nation to serve their vested interests rather than Malaysian’s interest. However, it was a mistake for me to take the enthusiasm that my colleagues in the Opposition showed when talking about political funding as tacit approval of my endeavor.
I continued with fervor, determined to make sure this bill will see the light of day in the Dewan Rakyat. But life, being what it is, had other things in store. We can plan all we want. But verily, God is the best planner of all. My Opposition colleagues, for all their talk about wanting governance and transparency, balked and continued to oppose the idea of a political funding act with all manner of guile and guise. The committee received opposition left, right and center and the bill didn’t go through. While it saddens me to see it that way, I believed it wasn’t the end.
Coming into power in 2018, PH did not make good on their promises of reform. Glaringly, they’ve never tabled the Political Funding Bill, which incidentally, was slated to be tabled in 2020.
Today, more than ever, we see an urgent need to decouple financial interest from political interest, and for political funding activities to be made transparent, accountable and above board. If we aspire to have a mature democracy the likes of which we see in the western world, political parties must accept that political funding must be regulated, and lobbying be made public. One can’t talk about such aspirations and yet refuse to adopt regulated political financing.
So, if one wants to see our democracy mature into a modern and functioning democracy, we must regulate any and all activities associated with political funding. We can’t shout our belief about transparency and governance unless we also agree to have this mechanism in place. A political funding Act will also serve as a check and balance mechanism against party-hopping in the name of power and greed. Through this Act, a party and an MP must make available records of the fund-raising activities that was done and the people and organizations who are donating money to them. Not only must we make political funding activities above board, we must also ensure that our leaders, chosen via the democratic process, is clear of receiving ill-gotten gains from unscrupulous sources.
The third and final piece of the puzzle to cure our democracy of her ailments is to expand the voter-base of this country by allowing 18-year-olds to vote, and by implementing the automatic registration of voters. The right to vote isn’t exclusive to a select few based on their age, race or skin color - our Federal Constitution guarantees the right of everyone to vote.
Expanding voters-base is not something new to me, and neither should it be for the members of the current administration. While I was the President of UMNO, I made an amendment to the party constitution in 2013 that expanded the voting-base from about 2500 delegates to about 145,600 delegates.
This has allowed the decentralization of power, thereby making our delegates less susceptible to money politics. If it can be done within UMNO, I don’t see any reason why it can’t be done with UNDI 18 and automatic registration of voters.
Democracy, ladies and gentlemen, is trust and liberty at its core. It’s about allowing the voters to exercise their liberty to vote for whomever they like, and to have trust the voters’ judgment. The thing is, we can’t only use this concept when it suits us, and discard it when it doesn’t. The recent turn of events regarding UNDI 18 only goes to prove that the current government doesn’t trust the younger generation of Malaysians to make decisions for themselves. On top of that, it appears that this administration is fond of using the name of democracy only when it suits them.
Why can’t we trust our 18-year-olds to vote when we trust them enough to make 18 the legal age for a lot of other things in life like getting a loan to buy a car, and even joining the armed forces and police? Is the current administration denying them their liberty to exercise their rights to choose? If so, isn’t the administration effectively telling our younger generation that they have no say in determining their future?
History and recent events have pointed out that the younger generation has a greater capacity to do good and change the world. We must give them a chance not just in life, but also at the ballot box. We must allow the younger generation to represent their interest in scheme of things. I believe they can very well articulate and fight for issues that directly impacts them such as unemployment, climate change, and social welfare. We must, as elders, give them that opportunity to learn and grow.
The 18-year-olds of today can’t and won’t be mollycoddled anymore. The recent move by the administration to U-turn the decision to delay the implementation of UNDI 18 signals an unwillingness to respect democracy, and shows their insincerity in making our democracy more robust. Moreover, I am perplexed at the reasons given as to why we can’t expand our voters-base by allowing automatic voter registration. With all the current technological advancement available, is the administration telling us that its technically impossible to do this?
It took 3 and half years from when the Bill was tabled in July 2019 for it to be passed. And the administration is now saying that it needs another 18 months to execute it?
There is no feasible reason to not implement this initiative. 211 MPs voted for it in July 2019, many of whom now make up the current administration. Unless of course, this administration - in its disdain for democracy - believes that a whopping vote in Dewan Rakyat should not be respected.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me to take us back to the night of May 9, 2018, as the results of the 14th General Election slowly unfolded in the long, long hours of the night. It was a night that shook the whole of Malaysia, and I admit that it shook me even more.
That night filled me with an agonizing frustration. It was a kind of defeat I had never before felt in my life. It was a kind of defeat that one is admittedly reluctant to face or accept.
In that emotional chaos, what was I supposed to do? I was going down in history as the first Malaysian leader to live through a change of government. After 60 years, Barisan Nasional was defeated, and my name was forever going to be etched in history.
What was I supposed to do?
I was counseled with options by people around me. One of the options was to declare an Emergency, which I outright rejected because it may lead to chaos - and that will surely take a toll on my conscience.
As a practitioner of democracy, I cannot stress the importance of admitting defeat and allowing for smooth transition of power. In doing so, I played my part in ensuring that the transition of power went smoothly. However, the same decorum wasn’t accorded to me.
I willingly cooperated with the then PH administration to hand over the reins of the country only to be met with harassment, which was not limited only to myself but also to my family members, and most importantly my staff. We were treated with utter disrespect and disdain.
But make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen. Deep down, I knew there and then what to do. As my own world crumbled, the new world of the people was taking shape. The people of my beloved country had spoken.
In the Malay language, we have this word ‘keramat’, which means sacred. The sacred voice of the Malaysian people had been heard. Who was I to defy it? That night, I was no longer the Prime Minister, and I was to step down as UMNO President. But one thing remained unchanged: I was a firm believer in democracy. I still am, ladies and gentlemen.
Out of my love and respect for democracy, I did the only right thing to do that night. I faced and accepted it…
