Government and Politics

By Wan Saiful Wan Jan

16/08/09: This week (16 – 22 August 2009) is World Water Week. To mark this global event, the Malaysia Think Tank is publishing the report “Water Provision in Malaysia: Privatise or Nationalise?”. The report looks at what we can learn from the global successes and failures of water management. The aim of this report is to make clear that the priority for any public policy, including the management and provision of water, must be the general public good. Policymakers need to put in place the policy that is best for the public, not the one that best suits their personal, political or ideological agenda.

By Dr Helmy Haja Mydin

27/7/09: It is common knowledge that life as a junior doctor in Malaysian public hospitals is not a bed of roses despite the various improvements that have been put in place over the past few years. One of the most common complaints that can be heard is with regards to the lack of doctors. But it is less common to hear anyone mention about there being too many patients at hospitals.

By Wan Saiful Wan Jan

1 July 2009: The Erdogans in PAS must come up with a coherent reform agenda, or they will eventually be portrayed as having quietly admitted mistake and defeat. This will make it very difficult for others in the party to speak up for decades to come. The Erdogans will eventually become the latest evidence why speaking up in public is bad and does not work for PAS.

by Wan Saiful Wan Jan

1 June 2009: I think the British royal family is far more transparent that the British parliamentarians. Their accounts are published annually and can be easily accessed on their official website. Perhaps one of the many Malaysian royal families can show leadership in this area, and publish their royal accounts first like what their British counterparts are doing.

My generation is often, with good reason, accused of not understanding the implications of history. It is not just an ignorance of the facts, but also an ignorance of the strong emotions that continue to be felt. While the government reminds us about 13 May on a regular basis, the much wider impact of the Malayan Communist Party’s campaign of terror is relegated. Yet the proposal to allow Chin Peng’s return has triggered a flood of angry responses from letters from descendants of victims and servicemen. One particularly moving letter asks: “Chin Peng, where is my father’s grave?”. My generation has no right to ignore their pain.

By Dr Helmy Haja Mydin

28 May 2009: The bickering amongst various stakeholders regarding the disbursement of JPA scholarships occurs as regularly as the eruptions of Old Faithful at the Yellowstone National Park. Arguments are often raised about who should receive the scholarships. The loudest are usually parents who decry the system for failing to provide their child with a scholarship that the child ‘obviously’ deserves.

4 April 2009

By Tunku 'Abidin Muhriz

“Reform or Die” is an oft-employed plea for organisations on the brink of defeat or irrelevance. The imperative has been invoked in ancient kingdoms, pre-modern empires, the United Nations (numerous times), and political entities around the world. Either of the oldest political parties in the world (either the British Conservatives or the US Democrats depending on which criteria you use) – have only managed to last until today because reform, fresh leadership and policy reorientations occurred at pivotal points in history – even if the ideological underpinnings remained constant.

19 March 2009

By Tunku 'Abidin Muhriz

That is why it is essential that not only the original party of freedom, of our Merdeka – but all Malaysian political parties – democratise themselves, subjugate themselves to the grassroots, and decentralise decision-making while ensuring any new bodies are subject to the same legal force that they are. If the parties don’t abide by the rule of law then there is little hope that they will promote it in government.

4 May 2009

By Tunku 'Abidin Muhriz

Reversing our situation will require some enabling reforms, including academic freedom and some competition in school curricula. In the meantime we should take comfort in the growing interest in family history, which is easily the number one resource for alternative accounts of the past, and I’m an avowed fan of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? and the Photos for the Future spots on History International. But it is difficult for Malaysians to challenge official accounts. The textbooks and encyclopaedias say that one my ancestors arrived in Negeri Sembilan in 1773, but recent discoveries show that this is probably rubbish. It pains me that I cannot put this right in the textbooks, and I imagine it offends countless Malaysians who have first-hand accounts from ancestors that the story of our nation has been raped for the sake of academic laziness and political expediency. But if we truly are patriots then we ought to know what really happened, and that is why I keep repeating the mantra that history began way before 31 August 1957.

19 May 2009

If the obduracy of the parties continues to lengthen this debacle, the costs to taxpayers and to democracy will spiral further. Though I maintain that the root cause of all this is the insufficiently democratic method in which candidates are selected – which weakens their loyalty to their constituents – all our noble institutions have been besmirched. I read what my childhood political figure living in Ampang says, and perhaps geographical proximity is no longer the only reason to support him.