Malaysia In The Next Era

By LH Chew

Sometimes it makes me wonder if we really have the guts to take the first step to make the change. We like to lament how bad things are, how the government took us for a ride, how innocent people who simply wants to see reforms were ‘terrorised’, the corruption, the money leakage, and all sorts of ills, yet we still want to stick with BN election after election.

Yes, BN had ruled for more than 50 years, and we have been eating the same set of dishes for that long, should we not have a different taste now? Previously, I wrote in my article ‘A New Dawn In Malaysia, Hopefully’ which was published in Malaysia Today last December and I mentioned if we voted an alternative government into place and they do not perform as what the rakyat expected, we can always kick them out in the next election. But if we do not even try, will you see any changes? If there is no change, there is no change.

Sure, changes come with risks, as it has been proven in many other countries when they changed the government, but if we do not take risks, do you expect your life is going to improve? There is no such thing as a free lunch and we know that. Take Taiwan for example. It was ruled by KMT for more than 50 years and the people voted for a change in government in 2000. Unfortunately what they got was a miserable 8 years under the rule of the new government. The new government became even more corrupt and they abused their power more than the previous government. But the civil service did improve and the civil servants for once really became a ‘servant’ to the people, they became more polite and humble.

After experimenting with an alternative government, Taiwan decided to vote back KMT because during those 8 years in the wilderness, the KMTtransformed and reformed and listen more to the people. In other words, they suddenly became more people-friendly. We need to keep ourselves in mind that there is no such thing as a perfect government and we cannot expect when we are given a drumstick, we want the whole chicken. With a reformed KMT back in power, there was less turmoil in the society and the economy did get going and the peoples’ lives did see improvement.

So, if our Pakatan Rakyat brothers and sisters claim they can do a better job than the BN government, let them try. If they do not live up to what they said they can do, we will simply kick them out in the next election. But we first must bite the bullet and let them form the government. What is the point of complaining about the state of affairs if we continue voting in the BN government. If we do so, then we should just shut up and take all these unpleasantness in our stride.

We have already read in the alternative media, the exposures related to abuses of power that were swept under the carpet and selective prosecution. We want all these ‘crooks’ to see the light of the day. We want a fairer society. But if we keep sticking with the BN government, we are not sure if we can see some remedies to these ills.

Indeed Pakatan Rakyat do have some good people in their line-up and hopefully when they form the government, they will live up to their expectations. Yes, there were many ‘kataks’ too as back in 2008, Pakatan Rakyat just grab any live bodies to stand for them but these unworthy members should have been weeded out when they jumped ship. We want to see those who remained in Pakatan Rakyat prove their worth.

So, hopefully come GE13, we can all wake up to a new government. Let us not just talk about it, just do it!