Don: Dr M wrong, hung Parliament good for political stability

 

Healthy competition, and not a two-party system advocated by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, is the panacea for political instability, according to Sunway University political scientist Wong Chin Huat.

He argued that a two-party system could lead to political instability due to the deep enmity between the two camps.

Wong also disagreed with the former premier's claim that a hung Parliament, as witnessed in the last general election, was a stumbling block.

“Hung Parliament can promote stability - by encouraging competing parties to moderate their positioning because they must consider the potential need for power-sharing with rivals after the election.

“This is why countries like Germany and Denmark have political stability with hung Parliament. Germany has always had hung parliaments after its first post-WW2 election. For more than three decades, Denmark has been ruled by minority governments,” he told Malaysiakini.

Wong (above) said a two-party system in Malaysia would encourage both camps to demonise each other to mobilise their own base, as shown during 2008-2015, the closest the nation had come to a two-party system.

He said this prolonged electoral enmity and social division after the election to the extent as if immediately after the election night, the campaign for the next election started.

“Worse, a two-party system is unsustainable and would evolve into one-party dominance due to over-concentration of power.

“The first three opposition coalitions collapsed after their second election because their parties saw no future by moving to the centre. When the fourth one succeeded in 2018, the new opposition coalition - BN - disintegrated for the same reason,” he added.

Anwar’s plan to co-opt PAS

Yesterday, Mahathir, under whom Umno and BN remained dominant for over two decades, urged Parliament to mandate that only two parties are permitted.

He lamented that the political landscape is now littered with splinter parties which prevented the forming of a stable government.

The political scientist was also sceptical about establishing a two-party system in Malaysia because of the over-concentration of power.

He said that unless and until there is a level playing field, having a First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system would not lead to a two-party system but create a one-party/coalition dominance instead.

“If Harapan-BN wins GE16 with a simple majority (before even counting seats from GPS, GRS and Warisan), Bersatu would likely close shop.

“Even before that, Anwar Ibrahim is rumoured to try co-opting PAS into his government once (PAS president Abdul) Hadi (Awang) exits the scene. The starving of PN parliamentarians on constituency allocation is apparently part of the scheme,” he added.

Hishammuddin and the keris

According to Wong, the one coalition/party dominance is the real threat to political stability in Malaysia.

“If the government wins too many seats and feels invincible, political instability will follow in two senses.

“First, dominance breeds corruption which causes public discontent and implosion within the party, not just in the case of 1MDB but also previously during Mahathir 1.0 (his first tenure as prime minister).

“Second, more fundamentally, because our permanent coalition under FPTP does not allow internal competition within allies, from contested seats to ministerial posts. This leads to infighting and ethnic outbidding even when the government initially enjoyed cross-ethnic support.

“Hence, when the ruling coalition wins too big and opposition is ignorable, such as the Abdullah (Ahmad Badawi) government's 90 percent parliamentary majority (2004-2008), ambitious politicians would have to play tough or nasty to move up or even just be relevant.

“This is structurally the reason why soft-spoken (former Umno vice-president) Hishammuddin Hussein raised his ‘keris’ for three consecutive years in Umno assemblies, even though BN benefited from non-Malay support for its landslide,” he added.

Hishammuddin Hussein raising his keris

Wong stressed that true political stability would stem from healthy competition.

“When parties can see the prospect to win but no guarantee of winning, they would likely behave more rationally, exercising self-restraint both in governing (less arrogance and power abuse) and electioneering (less demonisation of opponents),” he said.

Wong hailed fragmentation of parties since having multiparty competition is good for the electorate as a whole or any community - Malays, non-Malays, Sabah and Sarawak.

Employing a hypermarket analogy, Wong questioned if consumers would benefit if Aeon, Lotus’s, Mydin and Giant merged into one entity.

“If voters have only one option, they would not get better deals and they also cannot ‘throw the rascals out’ when politicians betray or fail them,” he said. - Mkini