An election every five years is no guarantee of democracy, Muhyiddin

Deputy Prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin is adamant that Malaysia possesses a vibrant democracy because a general election is held every five years.

Muhyiddin made the remarks when he told the opposition to stop instigating the people with talk about toppling the government, just like events in the middle-east and north Africa.

The DPM was furious that opposition leaders had dared to compare Malaysia with those countries. In his opinion, the opposition was acting irresponsibly, was being undemocratic and was deliberately creating chaos even though Malaysia was peaceful, prosperous and undergoing rapid progress.

He said, “Ours is a vibrant democracy where every five years we call for an election. They (the opposition) are also able to win seats, and then there are by-elections which we won and they lost, and there are also those that we lost.

“It has also been amply proven that this country of ours is a democratic country, a country which is not govern in any autocratic or dictatorial way.”

Can Muhyiddin be that obtuse? The process of electing our members of parliament to represent us in the Dewan Rakyat does not equal democracy.

An election is just a means of selecting people. On the other hand, a democracy is government by people whereby the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them or their elected agents, under a free electoral system. .

Zimbabwe, Russia, North Korea and Iran have a general election every five years but no one in their right minds would call these countries ‘democratic’.

It is obvious that BN and us, the rakyat, are not reading from the same page. We were wrong in thinking that Muhyiddin and all of BN and their supporters had the same definition of democracy as ours.

When BN selected people who are guilty of corruption to become Chief Ministers of the various states, or when they nominate those who have been implicated in money politics to become heads of large organisations and when they ignore the protests of the public when taxpayers’ money goes missing or is unaccounted for, BN did not think it was doing anything improper.

When BN wanted to spend billions on mega-projects but tells us we have to tighten our belts, they felt there was nothing wrong with that.

When BN decided to erase large chunks of our history and give us their version of the history of Malaya/Malaysia, they were horrified to note our displeasure, but still went ahead anyway.

Muhyiddin refuses to acknowledge the parallels between the endemic corruption and the suffering of the people in Tunisia and Egypt, with Malaysia.

He possibly sees nothing wrong with Prime minister Najib Abdul Razak telling Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya to stop using violent methods against the Libyans and in the next breath, Najib instructing the police to use violence against fellow Malaysians in the Hindraf march.

There are enough men to choose from between the police, the security forces and the 3 million RELA volunteers, to force BN’s will on the rest of us who crave true democracy.

The desire for BN to cling on to power and the refusal to acknowledge corruption and other injustices in the country will one day come to haunt Muhyiddin, and BN.

Muhyiddin’s own acknowledgement that he was a Malay first and a Malaysian second is in itself revealing. He is not a team player who wishes for a united Malaysia.

He is a fool to tell the opposition to stop informing people about the uprising in the middle-east and north Africa. He could lock up each and every one of the opposition but the rakyat will still be able to obtain news reports, of events shaping the world outside Malaysia from the internet, television, radio, newspaper, the humble telephone call or even when two people talk.

The faster Muhyiddin reads from the same page like the rest of us and snaps out of his state of denial, the better it is for him to understand that change is inevitable in Malaysia. He cannot stop the will of the people because it is an irresistible force. - Malaysia Chronicle