Navigating the Johor mess

Have you ever wondered where the budget for our snap state polls comes from? – AZHAR MAHFOF/The Star

JUST to get it out of the way: The Johor elections should not be happening in the first place.

To summarise two main points of my recent column on TheStar.com.my: Firstly, Omicron is about to hit Malaysia like a ton of bricks (like it has the rest of the world), and these elections are likely to be a severe catalyst, just like in Sabah.

Secondly, these elections will cost tens of millions at least – money that could have been spent on those who are suffering economically due to floods, Covid-19, salary stagnation, being cut from national sports programmes, and so on.

I do wonder, where does the budget for these snap state polls come from? Governments are fond of saying that they simply have no more money, that national coffers are running dry and so on.

But when a mentri besar decides to dissolve a state assembly, how is he assured that there are enough government funds to run an expensive state election? Does it just mean the federal government is now forced to borrow more money? Who really bears the extra cost, in the end?

As I wrote previously, having state elections this close to general elections is like booking one whole new private jet for one individual to get from KL to New York – just because that individual wasn’t willing to wait for a few hours to share a flight that was going there anyway. And we get to foot the bill.

I speculated that one reason for the Johor state elections was basically to mine data, ahead of GE15. At time of writing, what it has revealed so far is that things are an awful mess.

Umno is fighting with PAS; PKR, DAP, and Amanah are fighting about their logos; Bersatu is making overtures to Harapan; Warisan and Muda appear to be in some limbo – it’s hard to tell which way is up any more.

While many might be frustrated, I doubt many will be surprised at this state of affairs anymore.

We seem to still be in some sort of long, drawn out, uncertain consolidation phase following the Sheraton Move – which put a decisive end to the development of any sort of stable two coalition system here.

In the aftermath of Sheraton, and arguably long before, there is a question that must be asked by those who want to go beyond a superficial understanding of our political sound and fury.

Simply put: what do most of our current political parties really stand for?

The most extreme answer to this question is: absolutely nothing.

This isn’t to say that they’ve never stood for something. Certainly, when most of these parties were originally formed, they had some sense of purpose, and a defining ideology.

Over time though, purpose and ideology became subsumed to political expediency.

After a while, the defining determinant of political alliances could be accurately simplified to: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

2018 showed us that this "ideology" was even enough to form a brand new government. 2020 showed us that it was not enough to keep a government together.

If we go further back in time, we can also observe how Pakatan Rakyat quickly disintegrated after they stopped winning, indicating it was once again not a long lasting coalition that was built on solid principles and bonds, but a temporary marriage of convenience.

If we see a tie up between Harapan (whose very existence as a coalition is now being debated) and Bersatu, then we will know that the ascendancy of expediency over ideology is alive and well.

Since Sheraton, there has basically been a game of musical chairs as the various existing parties experimented with all sorts of different alliances, with nary a thought as to purpose and ideology.

I have often said that in today’s Malaysia, political alliances define party ideologies, not the other way around.

This has been true for so long, that most political parties now lack any sort of strong compass that determines their decisions. Decisions instead are defined mostly based on political expediency and political self-interest.

In this scenario, the end result is it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate one party from another.

One running joke is to compare such parties to Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

This analogy runs deeper than we might think. One would have to be a true soda enthusiast to discern any type of significant difference between the two, or between 7-Up and Sprite.

And yet, both versions must exist. Because the market simply tends to avoid monopolies. In that sense, we have both versions of the same drink because market and corporate dynamics essentially demand that they both exist.

In the context of Malaysian politics, this could almost translate into: political parties compete for the sake of competing. Instead of choosing between different ideas, or philosophies, or track records, we seem to be mostly choosing between two cliques.

In such a situation, I think we can expect to see even more somewhat petty, inconsequential bickering.

In the Melaka elections, I expected Umno to do well, but not to win the landslide it did.

My reading is that with the above scenario, the only relative value one party has over another is essentially stability. And for this, Umno’s 50-year track record of relative stability may be its largest asset.

Of course, in the long run, we must still be hopeful that a more promising game changer emerges.

I think what we can do at this point is think about what that game changer might look like.

There is a saying: if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

I believe the next generation of democratic movements to emerge will be defined by a much clearer, better articulated mission and purpose. I think they will go through great lengths to differentiate themselves from existing political parties in terms of how they approach questions of politics, consensus building, and democratic involvement.

In other words, they have to look completely different, sound completely different, and most importantly: operate completely differently.

I suspect such a force cannot be built as a political party right from the get go. Doing so would only result in falling into the same traps, and getting caught up in the same centres of gravity that dominate our current political landscape.

Needless to say, all this is easier said than done. But I suppose the point is that some of us need to start the saying and then start the doing. The alternative is to stay trapped in this mess, and I for one am a little tired of it.

Nathaniel Tan works with Projek #BangsaMalaysia. Twitter: @NatAsasi, Email: [e-mail]. #BangsaMalaysia #NextGenDemocracy. He wishes Gong Xi Fa Cai to all. The views expressed here are solely his own.