Politics is all about HOPE

People on the street, the simple folks like you and me (the rakyat or RenMin), have actually few expectations of the ruling class.

As long as the people have enough food to eat, live comfortably and peacefully, with their children’s welfare and education needs taken care of, they would not want drastic changes.

However, when governance becomes so bad that corruption and abuse of power have made life difficult for the people on the street, then whoever gives them hope of change will be hailed as saviour .

Throughout history, there are many instances of such. One example is of course the Tai Ping Tian Guo revolution of China which I have written an article on last year. For those who miss the article, they can read it here.

Politics is about giving people HOPE. Especially when people are feeling uncertain about future; when there is a sense of hopelessness about future.

The US people felt that way 2 years ago. And so when Obama came forward and gave them Hope for change - a change for a better life-many people voted for him. But when the expectation runs so high and whatever promises have not been delivered , hope changes to despair and despair changes to anger and displeasure. To be fair, perhaps 2 years maybe too short a time to show results in whatever reform, but when people loses hope that the promised change can be delivered, they become impatient and thus sentiment changes and the mid-term US results showed that.

In 2004, people in Malaysia, so fed up with corruption and cronyism and nepotism , were so full of expectation for change that they overwhelmingly gave Pak Lah the Mr “Clean’ a mandate never seen before in the history of Malaysia. But because expectations were so high, and things that were promised were not delivered, expectations changed to despair and anger, which culminated in the tsunami of 308. Pak Lah with such huge mandate could have taken drastic steps to revamp his party and remove the warlords, and change Malaysia, but he did not live up to the expectations.

Recently, I had a conversation with a well known Chinese community leader about politics in Malaysia. He opined that people had hope for a 2 party system to take shape after 308, and after 308, people generally had very high hope for PKR. It gave people then a hope to do away with racism, corruption and abuses.

However, with the infighting inside the party, people started to have some doubts . Whatever hope that was given to the people, if that hope cannot even be translated to fair and just practices inside the party, how could the party fight for fairness and justice for all Malaysians? If the party cannot even practice good governance inside the party , how can people expect it to do so outside the party..If only the loyalists are being rewarded and capable and liberal leaders like Zaid sidelined just because he is not a yes man,, is this not another form of cronyism? If the party cannot even rid cronyism inside the party, how is it going to rid cronyism when it comes into power?

Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu had once said that he would never promise anything that cannot be delivered. I think that is a very good advice, for politicians of both divides. For Hope given and not delivered will be the sure way to court defeat and this axiom applies to the ruling as well as the opposition parties.

For Malaysia to move forward and we the people to get better life, both sides have to buck up. Revamping is difficult but however difficult , it is a task that both sides must undertake.

courtesy of Dr Hsu's forum