The political financing bill: what’s taking so long?

 Are we so challenged that we can’t even fast track a proposed law and navigate intelligently on bringing this much-needed bill into reality?

The recent statement by law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said on the political financing bill is perplexing.

If this were not such a serious matter with long-lasting implications, one could double over in laughter at the ridiculousness of the path forward being proposed.

Perhaps Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should have taken Azalina along on a field trip when he visited the Tun Razak memorial recently.

Anwar spoke about three “Cs” during the Abdul Razak Hussein era: communism, communalism and corruption.

Anwar also remarked that “communalism remains strong and corruption continues to be one of our major problems.”

Political financing is viewed by various quarters, including anti-corruption activists, as the “mother of all corruption”. It feeds the hunger of political machinery, more so in times of elections.

The notion of a political financing bill is not new. It was mooted as early as 2016 by the then Barisan Nasional government. It was commented at that time that the opposition parties were not in favour of such a bill.

This brought out an immediate retort by Lim Guan Eng of DAP that the opposition had not been consulted; so how could they have objected. A bit of political sandiwara here! Now that said party(ies) is in government, why are they still dragging the matter?

Fast forward to post GE15, BN in a much-weakened state counting its MP cohort, came in as a gap-filler to form a unity government. The other partners in the unity cohort were elected on the clarion call, much touted, that corruption will be fought on all fronts, with no one spared.

In fact, as part of the winning euphoria, the vision was floated for Malaysia to be in the upper third quartile of the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. Surprisingly, now the local arm of TI is saying that the “time is not now.” When will it be? – when the stars align. This is a cop-out! Or are there other forces in play?

Some of it is playing out now, with three ex-prime ministers attending court on the same day and coincidentally from the same party. A dubious distinction by any yardstick but creates the perception, rightly or wrongly, that other considerations are in play.

The BN component was not elected on an anti-corruption platform but largely on parochial sentimentalities. Incongruously, now it is a BN person holding the “institutional reform” portfolio.

Shockingly to-date, no one has come forward from the Pakatan Harapan side to champion a degree of urgency on this bill. This will have telling consequences at GE16.

To provide context, the legal affairs division of the prime minister’s department conducted 18 engagement sessions (including eight at the state level) with 1,544 participants since it took over the study on drafting the Political Financing Bill in May 2023.

The Cabinet, on Sept 8, 2023, agreed in principle to draft the bill.

Now three years down, the minister is urging all 72 registered parties to submit their positions in writing on the proposed political financing law. Why in writing (and only urging) is legal poppycock best understood by lawyers.

The government is charged to do what is good for the populace as a whole notwithstanding that certain quarters may not subscribe to it. Seeking written views on the political financing bill is equivalent to asking smokers and tobacco conglomerates their opinion on passing a law relating to banning smoking in public places or curtailing cigarette advertisements.

How much taxpayers’ money has been wasted in the three years with the engagement sessions which obviously now has shown to have no meaning or importance attached to it. Ironically the survey engagement results showed a high degree of support from various quarters.

This borders highly on eccentricity at the various levels. Public support is high but political will is looking for its safe harbour.

As an analogy, houses are burning and we are convening a Rukun Tetangga meeting (mind you, not all are required to attend, only urged to do so) to decide if the fire needs to be put out and if so, which methods should be used, a human chain, fire engines or helicopters spraying water – not to forget that views have to be in writing!

One can’t be faulted for questioning the logic here. After three years to the dot, one has just been awakened from a self-induced slumber to suddenly see the sunlight draping the room – and at the speed of light, now decides to get political parties to “submit their positions”. No time bar has been set for this voluntary submission.

Even then the coy answer, when questioned about whether it can be done by GE16, is to innocently and unashamedly respond that one does not know when GE will be called. Legally correct but silly nonetheless.

Where is the initial gusto of “we will fight corruption” – it has definitely waned. It appears self-interests have prevailed.

Now, here we are twiddling our thumbs, verbally articulate in engaging in corruption rhetoric but when push comes to shove – we conveniently digress.

Are we so challenged that we can’t even fast track a political financing bill and navigate intelligently on bringing this much-needed bill into reality. Or perhaps the focus is on the colour and mode of attire for those on remand, be it orange or purple.

Corruption had been recognised as a menace by Razak, who passed on half a century ago. He was one of our great statesmen with razor sharp vision.

It is we who are suffering from birth defects in combating corruption. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.