Majority and minority

Politicians need to be very careful in how they talk. Barisan Nasional boasts about the higher number of seats it got and claims it represents the majority. Pakatan Rakyat boasts about the higher number of votes it got and claims it represents the majority. But both got roughly only 20% each of the votes. What about the rights of the 80% other Malaysians who did not vote for you? Are you saying they do not matter?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

There appears to be some misconception about the term ‘minority government’. Over the last fortnight or so I have been receiving a number of media statements from DAP and PKR referring to ‘Najib Tun Razak’s minority government’ or ‘Barisan Nasional’s minority government’ and so on.

I am not sure whether the people issuing these press statements do not understand what ‘minority government’ means or they are intentionally misleading Malaysians. Nevertheless, whatever it may be, the term ‘minority government’ is being misapplied in the case of what happened in the recent general election on 5th May 2013.

A minority government is a government in which the main party has more members (MPs or ADUNS) than any other single party but not more members than all the other parties combined.

A minority government exists where a government, lacking an outright majority of seats, depends on the support of other parties or independents that hold the balance of power in Parliament or the State Assemblies. This would apply in a situation where a party or coalition does not have an outright majority of seats to be able to form a federal or state government.

A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in Parliament or the State Assemblies but is sworn into government to break a ‘Hung Parliament’ election result. It is also known as a minority parliament. 

Hence, in Malaysia’s case, the Barisan Nasional government is not a minority government because it did win enough seats to form the federal government although without a two-thirds majority in Parliament. All Barisan Nasional needed was 112 seats and it won 133 seats -- 21 more seats than required to be able to form the government.

Now, assuming we only look at Umno (that won just 88 seats), and assuming that Barisan Nasional did not exist, then Umno by itself would be a minority government if, say, Umno and PKR (an opposition party) agreed to form a coalition government (which would now give them 119 seats in Parliament).

Maybe those opposition leaders issuing these press statements should take note of this and not wrongly refer to the present government as a minority government because it is not -- so this is very misleading. A minority government means you got less than 112 seats in Parliament and in Barisan Nasional’s case this is not so since it won 133 seats. 

Nevertheless, if it makes you happy to continue referring to the Barisan Nasional government as a minority government because it garnered less than 50% of the popular votes you are of course at liberty to do so just as long as you understand that this is the wrong application of the term.

Now, why am I so particular about the right application of terminology? Well, I have always been sensitive about terminology that has been wrongly applied. First of all, it makes ignorant Malaysians even more ignorant. Secondly, it is unfair and we are talking about fairness are we not?

For example, Muslim terrorists are always referred to as ‘fundamentalists’. I take offense to that as well. A fundamentalist Muslim does not make that Muslim a terrorist or extremist. It just means that that Muslim subscribes to and complies with the fundamentals of Islam. This makes that person a good Muslim. That does not make that Muslim a terrorist or extremist.

And what are the fundamentals of Islam? Well, we have talked about that issue so many times over the last nine years or so -- so I really do not need to turn this into a debate on Islam. Suffice to say that there are fundamentals in everything, even in bookkeeping or accounts. And if you deviate from the fundamentals of the debit and credit rule, then your books do not balance. Hence, in Islam as well, if you deviate from the fundamentals of the religion, your ‘book’ will also not ‘balance’.

So it is important that we understand each terminology and apply the proper terminology. A fundamentalist Muslim is a good Muslim. Why wrongly apply the term and make a good Muslim appear like a bad Muslim just because he or she complies with proper Islamic teachings?

Let me put it another way. A terrorist may be a fundamentalist Muslim (or he or she may think he or she is a fundamentalist Muslim) but a fundamentalist Muslim is not necessarily a terrorist. It is just like a Nazi during WWII was a German but a German was not necessarily a Nazi. And a Zionist is a Jew but a Jew may not necessarily be a Zionist. An IRA terrorist is Irish but an Irishman may not necessarily be an IRA terrorist. A Tamil Eelam terrorist is a Tamil Indian but not all Tamil Indians are Tamil Eelam terrorists. And so on.

Anyway, back to the issue of majority and minority. We always talk in terms of democracy and that democracy means majority rule. Hence when we talk about the rights of the majority it is about what the majority wants and what the majority wants overrides everything else.

Is this what democracy is all about and if so then is democracy really that good after all?

Why must the world be about the majority and not the minority?

In 1948, 82% of Brits smoked. By 1970, it had dropped to 55%. By 2007, it had dropped to 22%.

Hence, in 2007, the majority of Brits did not smoke and two-thirds of Brits supported the banning of smoking in public/enclosed places. So, to protect the rights of the majority two-thirds who supported the banning of smoking in public/enclosed places, smoking was banned in the pubs in 2007. But what about the rights of the minority one-third who do not support the ban or the rights of the 22% who do smoke? Well, the wishes of the minority do not count. Only the wishes of the majority count.

Is this considered fair and just? Because of this smoking ban, pubs all over the UK are closing at the rate of almost three a day (one of the reasons at least). That comes to about 1,000 pubs a year and this has been going on for quite a number of years now and some of these pubs are more than 200 years old.

So, in the UK, the rights of the majority override the rights of the minority. And the fact that pubs are closing at an alarming rate shows that more people who go to the pubs smoke than those who do not smoke. But the majority pub-goer has to ‘suffer’ because the minority non-smoker who goes to the pub wants a smoke-free environment. Finally, the pubs just close and both the minority as well as the majority are denied the ‘pleasure’ of going to the pub.

So can you see that 78% of the Brits do not smoke but the 22% who do smoke have to live by the rules of the 78% who do not? But in the pubs more people smoke than those who do not smoke. Yet the majority in the pubs need to follow the rules of the minority (although they are the majority outside the pubs).

Complicating, is it not? The issue of majority and minority is not so simple after all. It all depends on at what point of time you are the majority and at what point of time you are the minority. You can be the majority in one situation and yet get reduced to a minority in another situation. 

Okay, maybe pubs are not the best example to use after talking about fundamental Islam. Let me use another example instead.

Let’s say the 88 Umno MPS and the 21 PAS MPs and, say, another 20 PKR/PBB MPs gang up to make it 129 MPs and they vote in favour of elevating the status of the Sharia court to be above the common law common. (It used to be below until Tun Dr Mahathir made it at par). So now the Sharia court has more power than the ‘normal’ courts and it starts prosecuting people for ‘crimes against God’.

Since the majority Muslim MPs voted in favour of this would you consider it as acceptable? Do the majority Muslim MPs represent the majority voice of 28 million Malaysians? Well, under the concept of majority-rule no one can really challenge this other than just protest. Outside Parliament they may be the minority but in Parliament they are the majority. Hence the minority passes laws that the majority does not want mainly because while they may be the minority outside Parliament in Parliament they are the majority. 

Okay, maybe you can argue that 5 million voters voted for you so that makes you the majority. But what about the 10 million who did not vote for you or the 13 million more who did not vote for you because they did not register to vote or are not old enough to vote? Only 5 million votes out of 28 million Malaysians do not really give you the absolute right, does it? You do not represent just 5 million Malaysians but 28 million Malaysians.

For all intents and purposes, your 5 million votes are not the majority but the minority if against the backdrop of 28 million Malaysians. Hence your policies must consider 28 million Malaysians and not just 5 million Malaysians. To just consider 5 million Malaysians while ignoring the other 23 million Malaysians can be called democracy at work but cannot be considered just and fair.

However, that is how democracy works. A small percentage of the people vote for you and you regard this as having the right over the entire population. What if 6 million Malaysians want the military to take over? Is not 6 million more than your 5 million? And since this is the majority can Parliament be abolished and military rule be established? We are talking about who has the higher ‘votes’ are we not?

Politicians need to be very careful in how they talk. Barisan Nasional boasts about the higher number of seats it got and claims it represents the majority. Pakatan Rakyat boasts about the higher number of votes it got and claims it represents the majority. But both got roughly only 20% each of the votes. What about the rights of the 80% other Malaysians who did not vote for you? Are you saying they do not matter?

This is what the politicians tend to forget when laying claim to who is more legitimate than the other. Don’t just talk about the 20% who voted for you. Also take note of the 80% who did not. They, too, have rights.