Questions of leadership

Calling for the general election requires many things to be considered, especially at a fragile time for the economy and taking into account the rights and convenience of the rakyat.

TRAVEL throughout September saw aspects of leadership being repeatedly contemplated.

I was jogging in Hyde Park as the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death broke. Later, I walked through the crowd that had begun gathering to lay flowers and see the official notice hung on the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Throughout the next week until the funeral, about 250,000 queued to pay their respects at Westminster Hall. During this period, British news media was saturated by plaudits to Elizabeth II, and while even some monarchists found the coverage too obsequious, on the other hand my Labour-voting republican friends respected the historical significance of her death, and admitted to feeling unexpectedly sad.

While political commentators chimed in on the legacy of empire, the overriding need for a sense of belonging engendered by (perhaps deliberately manufactured) traditions, ultimately it seemed to be quite a mark of exceptional leadership to gain respect even from critics of the institution (a distinction I explored in my previous article).

I arrived in Edinburgh as Elizabeth II’s body lay in rest at St Giles’ Cathedral. I was there to attend the Tuanku Muhriz Travelling Fellowship Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, together with my family and a senior delegation from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The Yang di-Pertuan Besar, who is UKM Chancellor, was made an Honorary Fellow of the college (whose patron is now the new king) in 2016.

He mooted the Travelling Fellowship in 2018, with the aim of senior surgeons from the United Kingdom providing surgical services to rural communities in Malaysia (and so far with a focus on Sarawak).

As amply described by the fellowship’s first recipient, Prof Angus Watson, the partnership is a wonderful example of how collaborative leadership can lead to outcomes that transform lives for the better, boost knowledge and skills among local practitioners, and strengthen cooperative bonds between educational institutions. This will no doubt be further amplified with the arrival of the second fellow, Prof Andy Kent. During dinner, the prestigious College International Medal was awarded to Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah for his leadership throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of course, as with any gathering of Malaysians – especially while eating keropok lekor from Terengganu in an Edinburgh restaurant run by a lady from Kuala Pilah – conversations about politics were inevitable.

From then until now, the one question asked every single day has been: “When will the next election be?”

The answer to that might be answered by the time this article is published, but among the factors allegedly being considered towards that decision is the desire for some leaders to escape prosecution or secure pardons (the theoretical mechanics of such decisions being set aside in a blasé disregard for the rule of law), in the event of their party’s victory.

It is true that it is routine for elections to be called prior to the expiry of a parliamentary term, but taking numerous factors into account is normal too.

Predictable weather is one that applies in many democracies, for the aim is to make elections as convenient as possible to maximise turnout (and thus the democratic legitimacy of the result); would conducting a general election during the monsoon season achieve that?

The legislative calendar should also be considered: what important Bills are in the pipeline – the product of many years of work – that ought to be passed before a dissolution? And is it wise to interrupt stewardship at a fragile time for the economy, when a budget is due?

Answering these questions requires sagacious and moral leadership, taking into account the rights and convenience of the rakyat.

The monarchs of medieval Europe had their stakeholders too.

A return visit to Versailles reminded me of my history lessons of the French Revolution and how the perception of excess led to the guillotining of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. However, what we now see as his predecessors’ profligacy in fact had deliberate popular and diplomatic objectives.

At Versailles, Louis XIV designed elaborate public ritual (including his waking up and having breakfast) to magnify his royal authority.

In the meantime, his childhood home of Chateau Chambord in the Loire Valley was built by Francis I as a means of establishing architectural and decorative superiority over his rival Charles V (who had much more land and a bigger army).

It was also Francis who entered into an unprecedented alliance with Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent – the first between a Christian and Muslim state – to contain mutual enemies. Such thinking will no doubt take centre stage within Malaysian politics, where the simpler inspirational leadership of committing to values and service may be insufficient for victory.

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is founding president of Ideas. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.