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Thursday, October 19, 2017

How primaries can empower local democracy



The relatively poor turnout for Pakatan Harapan’s big rally over the weekend got me thinking about another point that Dr Wong Chin Huat recently raised in his articles about what we can learn from German democracy.
“It is worth mentioning that Germany’s Party Law stipulates that parties must select their candidates at the state and branch conventions with secret ballots, which gives state and local leaders – instead of national leaders – the real power in picking candidates.”
This runs in stark contrast to Malaysia, wherein the president of a political party has the ultimate say over who represents the party in every single seat - federal or state - in the country.
This is because said party president’s signature is required on the form that a candidate must submit to the election officials on nomination day if he or she wishes to contest using that party’s logo.
Thus, regardless of which individual the members of a local branch might prefer to run as a candidate, the party president is fully able to ignore any and all input in favour of the candidate he or she prefers.
Too top-heavy
We sometimes overlook the significance of this feature in Malaysian politics.
Obviously, it creates an extremely top-heavy/top-down dynamic.
While contesting other posts can help further one’s long-term political career, it is in fact, only the contest for party president that really matters.
Once you are the president, the power to select who to be elected into the national and state legislatures (these being the only elected positions in Malaysia) rests entirely in your hands.
Since elected representatives wield a considerable amount of power, this prerogative of the party presidents translates to the ability to stack the party’s echelons of power with men and women of their own choosing - creating a cartel-like organisation.
Impotent local politics
An organisation that is top heavy is, by definition bottom light.
In a Malaysian context, this means that local democracy and party politics at the branch level are relatively inconsequential timid affairs (I speak from a little bit of personal experience as well).
Most branch leaders are indeed voted into office, but being elected as the branch leader does not by any stretch guarantee that you will be chosen to be the party’s candidate in your district.
It doesn’t even guarantee you will really have any significant say in the deciding who gets to be that candidate.
Thus, what powers or abilities does becoming branch leader grant, exactly?
Precious little, seems to be the answer.
In most parties, those leaders presumably have considerable say in deciding who is selected to be the delegates to the party conventions that eventually elect the party leaders, including the president.
This system also lends itself to abuse, and PKR has done a commendable job in choosing to forego the delegate system and hold direct elections for its national leadership.
The system is, of course, better in theory than PKR has managed to realise in practice, but it is a step in the right direction.
Lacking motivation
Once that is done, however, the branch leaders are back again to a position where they have little influence in deciding candidates or influencing policy.
What this means is that they even have less stake in the outcome of the elections.
This is especially so when the candidate is a complete outsider, and/or when the candidate is from a different component party in the same coalition.
Many local political leaders thus lack the motivation to work hard to get someone who they do not really see as ‘one of them’ elected into a position of power.
There have been more than a few cases in our history where local leaders were so upset by the choice of candidate that they quit the party in protest, and/or joined the enemy in their quest for vengeance.
Battling apathetic citizens
If there are many reasons for local political leaders to be apathetic, what more local citizens?
If local political leaders have so little say over their potential elected representatives, what more the individuals who are not members of political parties?
Membership in political parties is not particularly high in Malaysia, especially among middle-class Malaysians.
One simple reason is that there seems to be so little to gain from becoming a normal member in a political party.
Simply put, one hardly has an influence over the politics of the party, much less the politics of the nation.
Expanding our democratic space
Far be it for me to argue that becoming a member of an existing party in Malaysia is an important way to move towards a better Malaysia presently.
It couldn’t really hurt (that much), but for the reasons outlined above, joining a political party can hardly be considered the highest impact move available.
This might change, however, if we can move towards a system that was more responsive to local polities.

Such a step could be a good move towards closing the gap between political ‘elites’ and the people they say they serve. Perhaps that, in turn, will result in fewer rallies that people don’t really care about, and more organic, grassroots programs that resonate stronger with more people.
Having some sort of primary system, such as those practiced in Germany and the US would certainly help.

NATHANIEL TAN distantly remembers branch meetings from previous lives.- Mkini

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