A little bit of prime ministerial envy

 

As New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern swept to a historic win over the weekend, I couldn’t help but experience a little prime ministerial envy.

Here was a young progressive social democrat who has earned plaudits for her leadership and the compassionate way in which she handled the Christchurch terror attacks last year. She has also handled the country’s Covid-19 situation bravely and was not afraid to demote her own Health Minister David Clark for violating New Zealand’s quarantine.

She’s been rewarded with 64 of the 120 seats in the country’s unicameral Parliament, the biggest election victory for her centre-left Labour Party in half a century, which allows her party to govern alone should she wish to.

It is the first time any party has had enough support to be a single-party government since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996.

Not only did the Labour Party sweep to its strongest showing in decades, but voters also took part in two referendums on assisted dying and cannabis law reform, two subjects close to my heart – with the vote itself indicative of a country’s willingness to move towards proper reform.

It was also interesting that despite having a simple majority, Ardern did not rule out the possibility of forming a coalition with the Green Party, which also enjoyed a strong showing coming in third.

Now, lest you think I’m one of those Malaysia-bashers who is dying to emigrate – I’m not. My sisters have moved to the US and the UK, and I have no love or admiration for Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, the caricature-esque leaders of those two countries.

And when I did visit New Zealand in 2005, I found it beautiful but a little too quiet for my liking – not like Malaysia which has been home to my family since my great-grandfather moved here in 1898.

My dream is not for a fresh start in an already developed country, but for true growth to happen in my still-developing homeland.

I do hope that Malaysians, who admire progressive, young, female prime ministers like Jacinda in New Zealand, would also look at Finland (Sanna Marin, 34), Iceland (Katrín Jakobsdóttir, 44), and Denmark (Mette Frederiksen, 43) to study a little about the philosophies that helped propel them to leadership.

All four lead left/centre-left governments.

Generally, they believe in high taxation that gives back to the people in the form of healthcare and education benefits, pro-worker policies, a pro-environmental stance, secularism (not mixing religion with government), and inclusive open-hearted policies from a range of topics including respect for other religions, races, and sexual orientations.

I’ve always believed that this is the way forward if humanity is to make any progress. Although I do understand that based on recent experiences, we have good reasons not to trust the government with our tax money.

But we really should make an attempt to understand the ideology - because I know many Malaysians are brainwashed even against social-democracy and environmental politics.

This is a way of thinking that is diametrically opposite to what people like Trump, Johnson, and our former leaders like Dr Mahathir Mohamad offered us.

Same old players in a tired game

It certainly is tough not to compare such dynamic young leaders with the "Malay-first" MP from Pagoh and all the other assorted figures who have stayed far too long on our political stage. I was groaning inside when the name of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah cropped up during the latest round of political maneuvering.

I mean, love them or hate them - Mahathir, Razaleigh, Muhyiddin Yassin, Najib Abdul Razak, Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang, and Abdul Hadi Awang - were all national figures when I was in the primary school in the early 1980s. Surely the time for fresh blood and new ideas is long overdue.

The thing about us Malaysians is that we talked about a new Malaysia but it’s hard to get a majority of the rakyat to agree on any single reform!

So many said they wanted a change, but any step in a more progressive direction raised howls of protest.

Try to abolish the death penalty – and its proponents come out of the woodwork. (A primary argument against the death penalty is faulty evidence-gathering by authorities willing to beat confessions out of suspects and plant evidence on them.)

Streamline school systems? Whoa, everyone’s triggered.

Sign the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Icerd)? No, no, the people will march to defend their right to discriminate. Make NEP a more fair system that helps all hardcore poor regardless of race? What an outrageous and seditious suggestion!

So anyway, while the best of the rest of the world is moving on, we are stuck in a perfect storm of a stalemate.

I do feel some sympathy for a man who has spent 10 years behind bars and has repeatedly been thwarted through nefarious means in his ambition to be prime minister, but neither Anwar nor anyone from his time is the answer to our problems.

As it is, he is facing obstacles and delays and is probably relying on untrustworthy and desperate Umno defectors who may just join him for a short while and then trigger another government collapse.

I don’t see any way that Anwar can get enough numbers to form a stable administration, besides which - now is a terrible time to take over. We have high unemployment, businesses closing, a looming recession, and surging Covid-19 figures. The tactical thing would be to wait and regroup for the next election, but maybe he sees this as his last chance.

The thing is, as much as his supporters may feel he has been cheated out of a fair shot at the top job, Anwar is also no longer the future of Malaysia but its past.

I guess that’s why I am a feeling a little PM envy when I look at Jacinda.

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MARTIN VENGADESAN is a Malaysiakini team member.