THIS column has repeatedly advocated greater democratisation of political parties in Malaysia. I was therefore excited to follow the PKR elections, and to be able to commend the party and encourage all parties to the same. Alas, that is not possible. The elections were so heavily criticised, with many party members openly expressing their disgust, condemning irregularities and interference from the leadership that the cause of greater democracy within political parties has now taken a retrograde step: instead, now when we recommend that parties should democratise, the response will be “but look at what happened to PKR – why on Earth should we democratise?” What a shame.
The climax was the dramatic exit of Dato’ Zaid Ibrahim from the deputy presidential contest. I should declare that Dato’ Zaid was previously an advisor to IDEAS’ predecessor, the Malaysia Think Tank, for a period after he resigned from the Cabinet over the abuse of the ISA and before he joined PKR. He was lambasted for criticising Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim and he has been discredited for his apparent impatience. The concept of ‘loyalty’ has been much bandied about: there is this idea that those who have been ‘loyal’ for many years should be rightly rewarded with senior positions.
The first question I would ask is: loyalty to whom? To the leader or to the party? In most functioning democracies the two are not synonymous. The deeper question that must be asked to party members is: why did you join PKR? Do you believe in things, or do you merely trust the leader to somehow make your life better? The answers of those at the top would be very revealing: naturally, someone with an irrevocable sense of destiny will try to perpetuate their own power; on the other hand, someone who believes in principles will gladly relinquish power if a majority of party members believe someone else can better advance those principles.
The ultimate question we are getting at is: what is the point of a political party? Is it for you to get into power or is it to enable people who believe in the same things as you to govern a country with a democratic mandate? I would like to think that most readers would say the latter, but unfortunately many politicos would roll their eyes – or outright laugh – at the utopianism of the idea. Certainly, personality politics has been such a staple in this country that no political party here is free of these mini-personality cults – handily often augmented with powers of patronage. This is buttressed by highly centralised power distributions within the parties that result in policymaking and candidate selection being determined only by a select cabal. Perhaps it is this discrepancy between power distribution and the democratic mandate that the majority of PKR members did not bother to vote at all. Democratisation of the appointments process should be in tandem with decentralisation of executive power.
The alternative is to accept the argument that Malaysians are too politically immature to understand the importance of a party election (“it’s best to retain a delegate system after all instead of this one-person one-vote claptrap – besides, so much easier to bribe people!”). Indeed, one critic of Dato’ Zaid labelled him as “condescending” in assuming that most Malaysians were as politically mature as he is, which I thought was a demented accusation based on contorted logic. Surely it is condescending to assume that Malaysians are not politically mature. If we want to move towards a politics that is founded on debate between ideological positions instead of one that produces barbarisms like “look at how great I am!” and “they are traitors, kill them!” and “bathe the keris with blood!”, then we must act as if we believe it is possible to speak with more elegance and be understood for it, rather than debase ourselves by joining the choir of tone-deaf charlatans. If Dato’ Zainal Alam could be tunefully optimistic about democracy in 1955, then so can we now.
Now, is there reason to be optimistic about BN’s direct membership concept? Reports say that direct members won’t have the same rights and privileges as those who are additionally members of component parties, so it’s very much third-class membership, but this gambit of electoral survival might one day vindicate the founder of UMNO – er, I meant the Independence of Malaya Party – one Dato’ Sir Onn Ja’afar.