Politics should not be game of winners and losers

Why is politics in Malaysia always seen as a zero sum game? One can only be a supporter of a single political party and nothing else.

If you are a Perikatan Nasional supporter, then you must agree and support all of the policies it pushes for. Likewise, if you are a Pakatan Harapan supporter. There can never be any grey area or middle ground.

When I say middle ground, I don’t mean being centrist either. What I do mean is that as voters, why can’t we be supporters of policies instead of political parties?

Personally, I don’t want to be aligned with any political party. If a party or candidate has a promise or manifesto that I like, then I would support the said candidate. If not, then no support from me.

I do understand that manifestos and policies are usually aligned with separate political parties. Candidates are supposed to toe the party line anyway. So, essentially, we voters do need to support a political party.

But, that’s why I like how Malaysia does not practise a two-party political system like the US.

With no intentions of criticising the American political system (I’m sure it works for them), if that system were to be implemented in Malaysia, it would polarise the country even more than it already is.

This is because Malaysians need to either be on one side or the other, black or white. You either win or lose with nothing in between. There is no grey area at all.

You can’t administer a country if it can only ever be black and white, especially in such a diverse place like Malaysia. With so many people of different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and cultural beliefs, there needs to be a lot of compromise.

This is why I think the many different political parties that exist in Malaysia benefit our society.

I like it when there are three, or even four and five, cornered fights when an election happens. To me, it represents diversity. It also gives the voters more choices.

Forming pacts

I also like that in the last general election, the different parties had to come together in a pact to form the government because there was no one party or coalition that had a clear majority.

You can call it a unity government or a confidence-and-supply agreement, a government like this, in theory, should be one that will be forced to compromise because of the many parties coming together.

With the diverse manifestos and policies that each one wants to implement, there needs to be detailed discussions to achieve the best outcome for all.

In my books, that would also mean the best outcome for the people who voted for all these candidates and parties.

Of course, we have to realise and expect that we won’t be able to get everything we want because there has to be compromise, but at least everyone will get something.

Nobody should be going home feeling like a loser, or at least nobody should be going home feeling like a winner either!

When this happens, then my idealistic dream of having a political system that is not a zero-sum game would be reality.

It means that the system acknowledges that there needs to be grey areas because that is just how human society is. It also means that we can all stop looking at politics as a game we play where there needs to be a winner and a loser.

For the people

Of course, this depends on whether the candidates and parties are all of quality and decent maturity.

It means that the politicians need to understand that their job and objective is to serve the people and the country and not to win power.

We need politicians who don’t play the dirty game of emotionally manipulating and scaring the people.

Not only that, we also need politicians who enter a unity government or a confidence and supply agreement with the intention of administering the country as a responsible government.

What we don’t want is a situation where certain politicians negotiate an agreement for the sole reason of wanting to grab power and stay there for as long as they can.

It also means that we need a public that is also mature and not too obsessed with political parties, like how people are so obsessed with certain sports clubs and teams.

We need to understand how our political system works and also be familiar with the manifestos and policies that the political parties claim to fight for.

Our people need to learn to vote for policies and practices instead of party and coalition. - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

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