A sense of entitlement is a ruinous thing

 

For a long time now this country's besetting vice is a sense of entitlement, so deeply entrenched among a large swath of its citizenry that perhaps it's no longer possible to dislodge it.

This entrenched sense of entitlement has spread to its political class. Now there is evidence this has well-nigh ruined it.

Consider what appears to have happened yesterday.

A prime ministerial presumptive took the opportunity of a royal audience, of which he had been waiting for the better part of two weeks, to present evidence he had of compelling support for his candidature to be prime minister.

After a 25-minute audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, he shortly after tells a ravening press that he had shown convincing proof of that support and now expects His Majesty to greenlight his life-long quest to be the PM.

The palace was swift to keep matters in perspective.

It issued a statement that the presenter told the King he had the numbers to be the PM, but did not divulge the identity of the crucial sections of his purported support, elements of which had a disconcerting tendency in the weeks preceding, to publicly deny having avowed that support.

Herein lay the rub: The PM pretender had garnered the support of a flaky fringe, but was not confident enough to reveal their identity, presumably from a well-founded fear that serial denial would follow.

Wasn't that grounds for him to steer away from saying, as he had a couple of weeks back, that he had “formidable” and “convincing” support for his claims to the premiership?

This, of course, does not reckon with his potent sense of entitlement to the position of PM, a sense whetted by a long period of travail – which his detractors say was self-inflicted while his supporters claim was imposed – he has endured in pursuit of his ambition.

Ambition must be a magnificent thing if it can endure much suffering en route to its fulfilment.

But the strange thing is that this long travail has not conferred an elevating serenity on the one who experienced it, a serenity that would be able to calmly accept that sections of his support for his desire to be PM that is ambiguous should not be touted as “formidable” or “convincing”.

Maybe it's because the sense of entitlement disfigures anyone who is in its thrall.

Certainly, its blight is not confined to the PM presumptive alone.

It afflicts sections of his claimed support for the PM's Office who quite clearly are unperturbed, when pressured, about repudiating in public what they have pledged in private. They feel entitled to dissemble.

After the prime ministerial presumptive proceeded from the royal audience to a press conference that was as ill-advised as his attempt to seek royal facilitation for his ambition in the first place, there was, intriguingly, another royal audience granted to yet another PM aspirant.

Neither this aspirant nor the palace deigned to divulge what the audience was all about.

But the rumour mills are not churning, partly because in the face of what is said to be the third wave of a deadly pandemic, the public knows that feverish speculation is idle and irresponsible.

It helps to recall that 39 years ago, yesterday's second royal invitee was undone by an overweening sense of entitlement about the deputy prime ministerial office he contended for by way of the deputy presidency of his party.

He was persuaded by the then retiring PM that he should contend for the deputy presidency rather than the top post, for which he was favoured because of his popularity.

He deferred to the departing PM's advice and after being the overwhelming favourite came unstuck in his try for the deputy presidency and the DPM-ship of the country in the face of a psychologically shrewd campaign waged by his rival.

Six years later, he attempted to unseat the president of the party and came within a whisker of succeeding.

He has quested for the top office for a long time, longer than the first invitee to the palace yesterday.

Right now, he seems to be the least unsuitable of the lot jockeying for the post.

If he arrives at the pinnacle, nobody would say he doesn't deserve it.

Many would acclaim him as 'great' if he cautions his people, and acts to conjure away the sense of entitlement destroying them as it had once before derailed him.

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TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for a long time, long enough to be aware of the corruptive consequences of power from which nobody is exempt. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.