Putting the best where they belong

The appointment of Perak PKR chairperson Muhammad Nur Manuty to the leadership of Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin's (Unisza) board of directors raised a number of eyebrows, especially as it follows Education Minister Maszlee Malik's controversial appointment as International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) president.

Perhaps this is a good time to think on the distribution of talent in Malaysia and the nature of political involvement.

Let’s start by stating some of our more obvious, overarching goals.

We clearly do not want the BN situation, where people were appointed to lead universities, government-linked companies (GLCs) and such, purely based on their loyalty to the people in power.

Such appointees were then expected to lead their institutions only in a manner which served the interests of their political masters. This unsurprisingly created a stinking mess.

In universities, it led to a culture of suppressing any type of student dissent, and clamped down on academic freedom as well as the development of critical thought, all in the name of furthering BN’s interests.

Needless to say, no one wants to go back to those dark ages.

The persons we want leading such government institutions are those with integrity, with the highest standards of professionalism, and who have distinguished themselves in their fields. The best Malaysia has to offer, in other words.

Should the best be required to be apolitical?

This, however, raises a few questions that we should consider.

Firstly, should we require that all such individuals be apolitical?

On the one hand, this seems a reasonable request. On the other, if we look a little closer, asking that all the best in Malaysia be apolitical begs the next question: who does that leave politics to?

If pursuing a career in politics was similar to pursuing a career, say, in engineering, medicine or the law, perhaps things would be more straightforward, and a natural distribution of talent and vocation would occur.

There is, of course, no such professional path for an aspiring politician. What is likely the most common path for a young Malaysian would be to work (often thanklessly) as an aide of some sort to someone in politics. Candidates for such a post are often drawn from industries like civil society, law or journalism.

We also need to ask, what does being a professional politician really mean?

It seems that there are only three types of purely political jobs that can be broadly described as meaningful -- be part of a government, be an elected representative, or be responsible for helping to win elections.

Barely any of these in and of themselves offer any serious prospects as a full-time career in which an individual can expect to grow and prosper in any sort of stable fashion.

More to the point, the amount of control you exert to succeed in becoming any of these things is perpetually limited.

Is a career only in politics viable?

In most other professions, working very hard is a highly dependable path of advancing in one’s career in a linear and relatively predictable fashion.

Politics is, in contrast, almost inherently a neverending rollercoaster, full of ups and downs.

The point is, if you forced a bright young Malaysian to choose only between a purely political career and one that required you to be completely apolitical, it’s not much of a choice.

If rising to a position of leadership in places like government institutions requires individuals to be fully apolitical, then those voices are in many ways removed from some very important debates about who should be leading our country.

On the flipside, this may leave the arena of politics to the type of people that could not have risen to the top of any profession.

Are those the type of people we want driving the political dynamics of Malaysia?

Many cabinet ministers are professionals in their own right, who worked to distinguish themselves in their fields.

As things turned out, this worked out well for them; but maybe we should not punish political aspirants from similar backgrounds who perhaps did not quite make the cabinet cut.

Rethinking power and accountability

Ultimately, what we have to find is some sort of balance -- a balance that puts the best of us in places that matter most.

The world today is abuzz with catchphrases like "disruptive technology".

Perhaps we should apply similar thinking to how politics works in this country.

In our current rather roundabout system, we elect legislators who decide on a chief executive, who then essentially appoints every administrator beneath him.

Elected representatives who are not part of the government find themselves in this odd situation of being accountable (since they have to run for elections), but having only some measure of "influence", and very little actual administrative power.

Why not elect all our administrators at every level directly?

After all, it seems to me that power and accountability should always go hand in hand. Having one without the other seems a little strange.

In other countries, a wide range of public officials have to run for office -- sheriffs, district attorneys, members of school boards, and sometimes even judges (albeit in a slightly different format).

In ours, we sometimes find ourselves wondering how much the one or two people we get to elect every five years actually matter, except for who they choose as their boss.

The right balance

Trying to find a balanced formula is always difficult, but it is also always worth a try.

The two main competing extremes that we must avoid is, on the one hand, any kind of ecosystem in which government positions are used as political rewards and means to exert undue influence; and on the other, a scenario in which being in politics means disqualifying oneself completely from using genuine talents to further the nation’s interests.

We must remember that while actual positions in the government (purely defined) are fairly limited, at present we have an excess of government-linked institutions (many of which should perhaps eventually be restructured) that need good leadership.

People who already have a full-time job in the government should perhaps stay out of further engagements and focus on their work, and government institutions should not be some sort of dumping ground for party loyalists whose only skills involve influencing voters.

That said, people involved in politics who have genuine skill, talent and qualifications, however, should probably not be rejected out of hand.

The key, of course, is to maintain the highest level of scrutiny for such individuals, and ensure an extremely robust set of checks and balances exist to prevent any sort of abuse of power for political purposes.

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NATHANIEL TAN is greatly encouraged by the recent moratoriums on the Sedition Act and the death penalty. - Mkini