Why it is not working

It would be very difficult to discuss or debate issues when we cannot in the first place even agree on the concept. My concept of a two-party system and third force are entirely different from yours. You take the two coalitions that we have in Malaysia as a reflection of a two-party system. You also consider the concept of a third force as three forces contesting the general elections. Even Anwar Ibrahim, the Opposition Leader, and Najb Tun Razak, the Prime Minister, can’t seem to grasp the concept.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In 2008, Malaysians said, “Enough!” And almost half the Malaysians who came out to vote voted for the opposition. Unfortunately, only half the eligible voters voted, the other half did not come out to vote, and quite a high percentage of those did not even bother to register to vote. Hence, in reality, only about 25% of the eligible voters voted for the opposition or less than 15% of Malaysia’s population. In total, less than 30% of Malaysians voted in 2008 against the backdrop of an eligible voting population of roughly 60%.

In 2010, the Brits also said, “Enough!” And 36% of the Brits voted Conservative, 29% voted Labour, 23% voted LibDem, and the rest voted for 17 other political parties plus ‘others’. Britain practically saw a hung Parliament with the ‘dark horse’ LibDem becoming the ‘kingmaker’. In total, about 40% Brits came out to vote, better than in Malaysia. You can see the details in the graphics below.

No doubt we can’t quite draw parallels between Malaysia and the UK. UK’s Parliament has been around since the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created in 1801 with the merger of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Union. Malaysia’s Parliament, on the other hand, was created after the First Parliamentary Elections in 1959, two years after Merdeka. Nevertheless, the UK has had a sort of ‘Parliament’ for almost 1,000 years. And it evolved and matured over those 1,000 years till what we see today.

In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws. In 1215, the tenants-in-chief secured the Magna Carta from King John, which established that the king must not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed), save with the consent of his royal council, which gradually developed into a parliament.

Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the powers of the English monarchy, which culminated in the English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649. After the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the supremacy of parliament was a settled principle and all future English, and later British, sovereigns were restricted to the role of constitutional monarchs with limited executive authority.

The Act of Union 1707 merged the English Parliament with the Parliament of Scotland to form the Parliament of Great Britain. When the Parliament of Ireland was abolished in 1801, its former members were merged into what is now called the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Malaysia is struggling to see the emergence of a two-party system. No doubt, we do have two coalitions -- the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, with 13 political parties, and the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, with just three. But the reality is it is two coalitions rather than two parties. Hence Malaysia is still very far from seeing the emergence of a two-party system.

While Malaysia still struggles to see the emergence of a two-party system -- and I am not talking about the two-coalition system like what we have now -- the UK has moved beyond that. In the UK it is no longer just about two parties. There is now a third force called the Liberal Democrats, a party formed in 1988 after a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party.

Thus, Malaysia is very different from the UK. Malaysia rules by a coalition of many parties. If based just on parties, like in the UK, no one party can ever form the government. Hence we are never going to see a two-party system in Malaysia. What we shall always see is two coalitions of many parties.

I have been talking about a two-party system for some time. I have also been talking about a third force for a couple of years. But most Malaysians can’t seem to grasp the concept of what I am talking about. Malaysians tell me that Malaysia is not yet ready for a third force. And Malaysia is not yet ready for a third force because Malaysia does not yet have a strong two-party system.

And herein lies the problem. I am talking about a two-party system. You are talking about a two-coalition system, which is something else altogether and not similar to the two-party system that we have in the UK. And when I talk about a third force you are equating that to three-corner contests.

It would be very difficult to discuss or debate issues when we cannot in the first place even agree on the concept. My concept of a two-party system and third force are entirely different from yours. You take the two coalitions that we have in Malaysia as a reflection of a two-party system. You also consider the concept of a third force as three forces contesting the general elections. Even Anwar Ibrahim, the Opposition Leader, and Najb Tun Razak, the Prime Minister, can’t seem to grasp the concept.

At least Barisan Nasional is a legally registered party, although Barisan Nasional is a party of 13 parties and not of individual members. Pakatan Rakyat is not even that. It is just a loose coalition that enters into an electoral pact to agree on how many seats each party gets and where these seats are. And the 13 members of Barisan Nasional contest the elections on a common symbol while the three from Pakatan Rakyat do not have a common symbol and contest the elections using their individual party symbols. Hence Pakatan Rakyat is not even a proper partnership like Barisan Nasional.

The reason why Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat must remain coalitions and never transform into parties is because of the very diverse interests and objectives of each member. Can the 13 parties in Barisan Nasional close down and all their members become direct members of Barisan Nasional? This would mean, in the end, there would no longer be any Umno, MCA, MIC, Gerekan, PPP, etc. All these parties would no longer exist and all the 4.5 million members of these 13 parties now become members of Barisan Nasional. 

This can never happen, just like we will never see PKR, DAP and PAS closing down and all its one million or two million members becoming direct members of a legally registered party called Pakatan Rakyat.

So, yes, I too would like to see the emergence of a two-party system in Malaysia. But I doubt we will ever see that happen. For that to happen we must move away from the concept of coalitions and get all these parties to merge, like what PKN and PRM did to see the birth of PKR. PKN and PRM have already merged into PKR. Can PKR, DAP and PAS now also merge? Impossible! 

So, if you want to wait until we see the emergence of a strong two-party system before we talk about the third force, as many of you are saying, when will that happen? Britain took 1,000 years for its Parliament to evolve into what we see today. Will we also need 1,000 years to see that happen in Malaysia before we not only talk about a two-party system but a three-party system, like what happened in the UK in 2010?

LibDem was formed in 1988. And it took LibDem 22 years to finally become part of the federal government. In short, it took 22 years for the UK to see the two-party system transform into a three-party system. In 2010, Britain did not see two-corner contests. It saw multi-corner contests. And because of that the government changed hands.

Maybe we should get rid of the two-coalition system that we have in Malaysia, I really don’t know. Why should the elections be the exclusive right of only two groups, Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat? Who gave them this exclusive right? Maybe PKR, DAP, PAS, Umno, MCA, MIC, Gerakan, PPP, and the more than a dozen or so other parties should contest the elections in their individual capacities. Let it be ten-corner fights for all we care. We will let the voters decide and then we shall see which party wins enough seats to form the government. And if no one wins a clear majority then they can go and form the coalition government.

In the present situation, we see parties that fail becoming part of the ruling government. Even though their candidates got defeated, they get appointed as senators and get appointed as Ministers. The voters have rejected them and yet they are in the government. And this is because we work on the system of coalitions and not based on parties. Is this democracy at work?

Malaysia’s election system is a distortion of what the voters really want. If there were no Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, and instead the voters were asked to vote based on the party of their choice, the general election result may be totally different from what we see now. 

Would this give us a better government? I don’t know. Will this instead trigger post-election chaos? I really don’t know. What I do know is that the voters are not given too much choice. The present choices are: if you support Najib then vote Barisan Nasional and if you support Anwar then vote Pakatan Rakyat. In that case why not we change from the UK system to the American system where we vote for the Prime Minister we want rather than the government we want to represent us. 

Malaysian elections have been reduced to a contest between Najib and Anwar. It is no longer about the party. Parties do not matter. We vote for coalitions. And we may not agree with all the members of that coalition but we have no choice in the matter. We are forced to vote for coalitions even if we do not support certain parties within that coalition. 

So, yes, we need change. But we need more than just a change of government. We also need a change of concepts. We also need a change of approach. We must be brave enough to discard the old system that no longer seems to work and replace it with a more workable system. And much of our problems are because of the concept of Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. And if you think that the solution is merely to kick our Barisan Nasional and replace it with Pakatan Rakyat, then we are hundreds of years behind UK in maturity.

And I know what most of you are going to say. The UK is a matured society. Malaysians are not matured enough yet. So we cannot adopt the UK system for Malaysia. That is always a very convenient excuse, which the government also uses to deny us our fundamental rights and civil liberties. Malaysians are not matured enough like the Brits. So we cannot allow you total freedom like in the UK. That’s why Malaysia cannot practice absolute democracy. Malaysians can only be allowed guided democracy.

That is what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad says, which many of you also say.