Umno now executive, legislative, judiciary

The Barisan Nasional coalition system has turned Umno into a powerful authoritative de facto government.

COMMENT

There are competitive advantages of a coalition system of governance over other options of forming a government in a country that practises true democracy and the separation of powers.

The direct coalition system practised in many Western countries has built-in safeguards to prevent a government that practises bad governance from establishing a foothold in their countries.

Such a system is highly recommended particularly for Malaysia not only due to its multiracial and multi-religious background but also because scores of different political parties have mushroomed all over the country.

The more pressing need now is to abolish the system of controls that has been adopted by Umno, which is the major Barisan Nasional (BN) component party.

The BN coalition system has turned Umno into a powerful authoritative organisation that enabled the party to control the federal government itself.

In short, Umno is now the de facto government.

Such synonymous status has given the party the ability to decide on the national and economic policies on its own without the need to discuss with or refer to the rest of its BN partners.

To ensure the BN component parties remain subservient to Umno, the BN’s concept of power-sharing allows big brother Umno to impose its decisions on various national and political issues upon the other partners through a veiled and implied threats as and where necessary.

Umno wields power in Parliament

The Parliament, which is supposed to be a sanctuary where people-elected representatives converge to raise citizens’ concerns, has been turned into an authoritative institution that only allows or disallows the lawmakers from speaking on matters or issues favouring the BN government.

The Parliament is now a place to ensure reports of the activities of Umno politicians are covered up.

Umno also manipulates, filters and controls news from the mainstream media.

Umno, the de facto government, also ensures that cases referred to by the opposition and the people to the Malaysian courts that are detrimental to the party could be rejected.

The courts are directed to make decisions favouring the party and to ensure that Umno’s power remains unchallenged .

Special government agencies and departments, namely the Election Commission (EC), the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the police are taking direct orders from the Umno president-cum-Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to ensure the process of a general election can be manipulated.

Umno politicians cannot be touched by the law, and to protect Umno from harm’s way, the police will take action against those posing risk to the party.

Umno spawned Perkasa

And how do the police do this?

To prevent the rise of people power, little legal recognition is given to the aspect of human and personal democratic rights of the people.

The security laws are tailored to curb the open and public demonstration of people’s democratic rights through rallies and assemblies.

All the above measures will ensure that widespread and large-scale practices of misuse of power and corruption committed by Umno politicians, their henchmen and cronies at all levels and sectors of the government will remain unchecked.

And in the event, Umno’s power is threatened to its core as has happened since the general election of 2008, the leaders will apply direct threats and use rascal tactics to get the BN component parties and voters to toe the line.

The creation of a rascal organisation, namely Perkasa, is one of them.

These “controlled” measures form the main system of governance that has now become the norms and hallmarks of the Malaysian system of government.

History revisited

Prior to Independence, Malaya being a multiracial country had adopted the multi-party alliance approach by uniting all the three parties, namely Umno, MCA and MIC, under the Alliance party (Parti Perikatan) to contest the 1955 federal election.

The Alliance party won and formed the Alliance government in preparation for full Independence from the British government .

After the 1957 Independence, the Alliance government had to face a major insurgency waged by the Communist terrorists since 1948.

Economic development was greatly hampered in the process because a lot of the resources were spent to put an end to the communists’ so-called struggle to liberate the country which was, in fact, an ideological and military warfare to take over a country that had already achieved independence.

Despite the destructive acts of the communists, the multi-party alliance system worked well until the tragic incident on May 13, 1969, which occurred in the aftermath of a racially charged general election which was held three days earlier.

The incident, which remains a scar on Malaysia’s history, prompted federal leaders to finally agree to a grand multi-party alliance at state and national level to reduce politicking as well as racial and religious tensions.

They hoped an expanded multi-party alliance would ensure political stability, paving the way for a new approach to our political system.

Awang Abdillah is a political observer and a veteran journalist in Sarawak. He is an FMT columnist.