All the best, Ismail Sabri

 

There is a tradition in America, where the outgoing president leaves a handwritten note in the Oval Office for his successor - whether or not they come from the same party, and sometimes even for the person who had just beat the outgoing president in an election.

Here are some excerpts.

From George H Bush to Bill Clinton: “Dear Bill, I wish you great happiness here … You will be our president when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well … Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you.”

From Bill Clinton to George W Bush: “Dear George, today you embark on the greatest venture, with the greatest honour, that can come to an American citizen. You lead proud, decent, good people. And from this day you are president of all of us.

“I salute you and wish you success and much happiness. The burdens you now shoulder are great but often exaggerated. The sheer joy of doing what you believe is right is inexpressible. My prayers are with you and your family. Godspeed.”

From George W Bush to Barack Obama: “Dear Barack, congratulations on becoming our president. You have just begun a fantastic chapter in your life … There will be trying moments. The critics will rage. Your ‘friends’ will disappoint you. But, you will have an Almighty God to comfort you, a family who loves you, and a country that is pulling for you, including me.”

From Barack Obama to Donald Trump: “Dear Mr President - congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure … Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.”

Of all these lines, I think the phrase “your success is now our country’s success” stuck the most with me.

I have made my fair share of criticisms and disparaging remarks against Ismail Sabri Yaakob over these months and years.

I cannot hide the fact that he is far, far from my first choice as prime minister.

But the constitutional process has, in my view at least, been followed, and for better or for worse, Ismail has been elected to the highest political office in the land in line with all due process.

It might be fair to call me one of his ‘political opponents’, but I am not a political opponent who wishes him to fail.

Very simply put, failure today means thousands more unnecessary and avoidable Covid-19 deaths.

No matter what happens in this life or in this world, this is something I will never, ever wish or hope for.

And if the best way to avoid those Covid-19 deaths is to hope that Ismail does well as prime minister, then that is exactly what I wish.

Hindsight

Now that we have finally crossed this mark, there are just a few things about the past that I think are worth revisiting briefly.

There will surely be those who supported taking Muhyiddin Yassin’s last-ditch offer from last Friday who will be full of “I told you so’s” and such. This is, of course, their right.

In honesty, even with the present outcome, I am by no means now thinking: the opposition should have taken Muhyiddin’s offer.

I offer two main reasons why. Firstly, I believe that almost any change is better than no change at all. I think we can at the very least expect the new prime minister to be working hard to prove that he is better than the last prime minister, with regards to the management of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I think had Muhyiddin continued to be in power, we would continue to see the government taking us in exactly the opposite direction that we needed to be going in, in terms of Covid-19 management. I believe we can consider this a ‘known’.

Whether or not Ismail will depart from old policies in favour of new ones remains to be seen - it is an ‘unknown’. We can only hope he will.

We do recall that Ismail was previously in public conflict with former senior minister Azmin Ali over whether or not factories and such should be allowed to operate (remember the backdoor jokes of yore?). 

Hopefully, Ismail will now find himself empowered to make the correct decisions, and Azmin will no longer be allowed to make any public policy decisions at all.

Being objective

Secondly, I still do not personally believe Muhyiddin could or would deliver on the promises that he was making.

Political scientist Wong Chin Huat is one of the most prolific writers on this subject. He argued: “Politics is not love. You don’t need politicians to be sincere to love you. For insincere politicians, you just need them to be desperate.”

I disagree. On the first point, I believe Wong underestimates the power of sincerity, and the difference between a true patriot and the type of politician we usually get. 

This is, of course, an old disagreement between two friends, and I imagine he takes this position partly because he doubts that the former can ever win power in our toxic swamp of politics.

More importantly, I disagree that desperate politicians are the best to deal with. I believe Wong’s view is that when politicians are weak and desperate, we can easily press them to do what we want.

I think of desperate politicians as about as dangerous as desperate, cornered animals - and for similar reasons. I also believe that desperate politicians are more likely to make promises that they will renege on in the future.

We recall that Muhyiddin had not even secured support from his own base for the reforms, and was not thus not dealing from a credible position. He had no way of guaranteeing that he could persuade the MPs on his side to support what he was offering.

In his recent article, Wong also stated that a unity government is unlikely to be a good solution - arguing instead that a focus on confidence and supply agreements (CSAs) is the better way to go.

By way of good-natured jab, Wong has on multiple occasions called me a ‘unity fetishist’. I think he is wise to point out that we shouldn’t let personal feelings, partisan interests, or mild ‘obsessions’ and over-investing in any particular solution cloud our judgement. I humbly submit that the same should apply to CSA.

I, of course, had argued previously that one desirable option may be a Mageran-like body (without Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the helm).

A big part of my argument, however, was that this was an option to be taken in the event a ‘normal’ government could not be formed.

I think with a clear, constitutional mandate, Ismail has satisfied the conditions of a ‘normal’ government, and can now consider all options on his table.

He can invite members of Pakatan Harapan into his cabinet, or otherwise engage Harapan MPs in one way or another, or he may decide to enter into CSA agreements. He has the full spectrum available to him: he can innovate entirely new political paradigms, or he can do the most extreme form of ‘business as usual’.

For better or worse, it is his prerogative now. If he asks civil society for their views, I am sure they will be happy to provide them, but I doubt that will be the case; and I imagine most ‘reasonable’ Malaysians will give Ismail at least the space of a few days and weeks before judging him too harshly one way or another.

Long-term reforms

In the long run, I think none of us should forget that in both February 2020 and August 2021, as our nation made some of the most important political decisions in its history, the rakyat’s input into this process was essentially (and almost literally) zero.

The long-term structural reforms required to reverse this state of affairs goes far beyond two-term limits for the PM, anti-hopping laws, and Undi18. It requires a complete rethinking and overhaul of our very understanding of democracy.

Some of us have already started work on this, and that work will continue.

In the short term, I think the focus should be on Covid-19 and Covid-19 alone.

We beg Ismail to start listening to the advice of public health experts moving forward, maybe even to the point of appointing them directly to the cabinet as proposed by the likes of Dr Khor Swee Kheng.

If he can do this at the very least, I can’t promise I’ll ask people to vote for him in the next elections, but I can promise I will give credit where it’s due.

For now, to our new prime minister, whatever our past misgivings, I can only offer you my sincere very best wishes, because you carry all our lives in your hands now. Please carry them well. - Mkini

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NATHANIEL TAN is a strategic communications consultant who works with Projek #BangsaMalaysia. Twitter: @NatAsasi, Clubhouse: @Nathaniel_Tan, Email: nat@engage.my. #BangsaMalaysia #NextGenDemocracy.

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