Modus operandi to manage intra-coalition dissent needed

 

Dissensions are inevitable among diverse partners in a coalition government.

This is to be expected, more so when some partners have had a history of hostility.

To expect previously feuding parties to harmonise like a choir in a new ruling partnership is unrealistic.

However, to allow even occasional bouts of fractiousness to mar the public image of a newly established ruling coalition is insensible.

More so when there is an opposition coalition that is ravening to take over and willing to feed rumour mills about plots supposedly afoot to effect a change of government.

With a public susceptible to conspiracy theories and the availability of social media to give these stories circulation, it would be wise for the ruling government to get partners to agree to a modus operandi by which to manage intra-coalition dissent.

The process will prevent such dissension from getting out of hand, engendering instability.

The modus operandi will have the effect of conveying to all and sundry that coalition partners are mature enough to accept dissent as both inevitable and even necessary for the health of the coalition.

However, the dissenters must be disciplined enough to keep their disagreement from spiralling into forming cracks and fissures that will undermine the functioning of the coalition.

A sine qua non of this modus operandi is the use of temperate language in voicing dissent.

When voiced in an emollient way, dissent has a better chance of persuading than alienating the targeted party or individual.

It is as if the dissenter is gently tugging at the sleeve of the target rather than grabbing the person or party by the lapels.

That way it is non-confrontational and aims to appeal to the gentler counsels of the targeted.

Threats to withdraw cooperation or of a boycott if the dissenter does not apologise or retract the offending behaviour or statement should strictly be avoided.

Withdrawal threats and boycotts have a finality about them that are inimical to the practice of coalition politics.

Anwar’s unity govt

If politics is the art of compromise, as Bismarck said, finality is not the language of that art, as Disraeli had it.

Also, dissenters should avail themselves of a sense of humour because that would lighten disagreement, though bearing in mind that humour could backfire.

Still, there should be recourse to humour because it lightens and humanises the dissentient.

The unity government led by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is a unique experiment because of the presence within the set-up of parties that were once sworn adversaries.

When it is borne in mind that, at the bottom, democratic politics is a pacifying process rather than an adversarial one, it is not difficult to conceive that, for example, the relationship between past enemies, Umno and DAP, in the unity government is not all that impossible to envisage.

True democrats start from the premise that opponents are more likely to be mistaken than bad-intentioned and so they couch their disagreement in terms that are likely to ingratiate than infuriate.

Democrats that are prepared to shed past hostility for new partnerships for the sake of national interest would exhibit high maturity in working out a modus operandi to temper the dissensions that may arise from time to time amongst them within boundaries suggested by reason and civility.

Even contentious issues like a pardon for former premier Najib Abdul Razak can be “jawed-jawed rather than war-warred”, as Winston Churchill described the lineaments of democratic debate, within governing councils that have come together for the country’s future. - Mkini

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TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century’s experience.

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