What has become of Syed Saddiq’s policies and principles?

Lim Teong Kim’s recent podcast on BFM about the state of Malaysian football was a sobering one. His observations, not as a politician but as a professional, highlight the structural issues that not only permeate our football institutions but our administrative structures.

There is a need for great leadership on the part of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government for the country to move forward. But 500-plus days after May 9, 2018, have they shown the Malaysian people that they are capable of doing so?

Let’s look at Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, our youth and sports minister.

He certainly is the master of his own brand. Take how he channelled the negative comments about his “close-up” policy selfie pronouncements as part and parcel of how he approaches his audience.

He has considerable personal charisma, which helped him push the historic Undi 18 Bill with near-total bi-partisan support. Nor can we ignore his “enthusiasm” to push for greater youth representation given his near-constant statements on social media for the need to include more youth in policy-making.

But this focus on engagement only highlights some serious deficiencies in how the youth and sports ministry may be negatively affecting the execution of his portfolio.

National athletes have complained about the lack of “vision” in the ministry’s current administration. Look at statements made by national discus thrower Muhammad Irfan Shamsuddin against the ministry, given that they ended the contract of his personal trainer Frantisek Petrovic and rejected an application to train on his own overseas.

While many are familiar with athletes asking Syed Saddiq for support on social media, it also brings into question the transparency and effectiveness of his ministry in engaging his stakeholders.

His habit of constantly voicing public support towards newly growing sports is encouraging.

It was recently reported that he had met with representatives of Malaysia Pro Wrestling about legitimising professional wrestling. This is a good move, given that it helps to highlight hidden talent that the authorities may not currently recognise.

But how is this different from his support of e-sports in his early days as minister?

We have yet to see the details of his e-sports blueprint and how he can move it away from the cronyism and lack of expertise that plagued us before.

What is seen, however, is more of the same, from the presence of Saddiq’s brother as a “guest-of-honour” at an official eSports Malaysia event to the retention of the same organisational leadership that has been wholly ineffective in building a grassroots environment for e-sports.

More worrying is the increasingly uncomfortable meshing of personal political and ministry goals in Saddiq’s actions as a minister.

Let us not forget over how his attempt to curry favour with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad over issues with Israeli athletes led to the International Paralympic Committee stripping Malaysia of the right to host the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships scheduled to be held in Kuching, Sarawak this year.

The recent controversy over moving the FitMalaysia programme finale from Johor to Melaka also puts into question his own tenuous personal relationships with various state authorities and how they are compromising his ability to perform as a minister.

He is also all too comfortable with cosying up to corporate elites, no matter their allegiance during the bitter GE14 campaign in which the assets of those same corporate elites were readily deployed against PH.

This preference for big corporate figures often ignores local stakeholders, shown by his becoming patron of GoJek over Dego Ride and of Razer, a Singaporean e-sports hardware company, over existing local organisations.

When it was revealed that Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Mohd Rashid Hasnon was offered a chance to contest to be Kuala Lumpur Football Association president, Saddiq offered the following statement: “When accepting (appointments), later (the ministry would) receive letters informing it (the ministry) that it must give additional allocation (to this sports association) whereas, in the developed world, no politician is leading a sports association.”

He, unfortunately, did not share the same conviction when 13 members of his own party were given key positions as state coordinators in his own ministry.

The greatest irony perhaps is that what we are seeing is more of the same from the previous administration – where our ministers compromise the responsibilities and portfolio for their own political gains.

As someone so avidly said: Let’s start acting like professionals.

Rahman Talib is an FMT reader.