Properly Priming Our PM For His Second Year In Office, after his first, frankly, flattish year.

Malaysia had evolved into becoming one of the most prime minister-centric countries in the world by the early 1980s. It was once the situation that when the prime minister decided firmly on something it was first discussed with his closest associates, brought to the cabinet and then to parliament, voted on and transformed into policy and that policy was implemented. The civil service of those halcyon years was competent, professional and apolitical.The system had its advantages and needless to say, some disadvantages. The main disadvantage was that the flip side of a certain issue would be given less attention than it deserved , especially if it was not debated in parliament and whatever adverse aspects of that policy would be swept under the carpet. The negative aspects of that policy are bound to show up later.

This prime minister- centric tradition started with our first and perhaps the best prime minister we had. Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-haj(February 8, 1903- December 3, 1990) was in many ways an accidental, not an ambitious prime minister who came to the position by acclamation than anything else.

Two brothers from Johor- a Cambridge-educated lawyer, Dato Sulaiman and his younger brother, a Melbourne-trained medical doctor, Tun Dr Ismail Dato Abdul Rahman- persuaded the Tunku to contest the presidency of UMNO after Dato Onn bin Jaafar had had to decide to relinquish the post. Both these brothers were tactful, trustworthy and talented but tough and in the early years of Malayan independence had had a key role in diplomacy and the overall development of the country.

The Tunku set a tradition of heavily relying on and trusting his deputy prime minister, Tun Abdul Razak and entrusted him with almost all prime ministerial functions and powers. Radin Soenarno in his memoir ‘ Dare To Dream’(2012, Petaling Jaya) writes of how the then deputy prime minister Razak would query Radin on why certain papers were being referred to him when they were the prerogative of the prime minister. Radin’s answer to Razak was that it was on the specific instructions of the Tunku. The Tunku had the magnanimity and bigness of heart to attract strong people of high character to work with him. On their part the Tunku’s cabinet colleagues were generally those who had the greatest respect and trust in him.

Territorially puny peninsular Malaya metamorphosed into the large strategic landmass of Malaysia with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore initially. When the Tunku found he had taken on too much he agreed to Singapore’s separation on nicely negotiated terms.

Further the Tunku brought to his prime ministership an aura of sincerity, integrity, inclusiveness, good humour, cosmopolitanism and a regal simplicity which given his own royal lineage gave him a rare kind of gravitas, grasp of the finer workings of a constitutional monarchy and a rather sophisticated leadership role in government, community, sports, Islamic affairs and the general welfare of his people. The Tunku was a man of much experience, exposure and deep insight when he became the chief minister of Malaya in 1955 when he was just 52 years old. He had had friends from virtually every continent and as the president of UMNO, while living in Johor Baru, he had interacted with consular and commercial representatives from all over the world who were stationed in Singapore.

The Tunku had a deep understanding of diplomacy, of the geostrategic importance of Singapore in the field of international navigation and communications. He was also notably unique in that not a single relative of his attempted to ride on his name and fame to secure a position in the political or corporate ladder.

None of his successors had a full combination of all these noble, top drawer attributes.

For me personally the only other prime minister who came anywhere near the Tunku in terms of excellent and exceptional personal attributes was Tun Hussein Onn. But Hussein perhaps had an obsessive weakness for thoroughness and meticulousness. This care and cautiousness made Hussein's decision-making processes painfully slow. Another perceived weakness of Hussein was his love, loyalty and respect for Tun Razak which maybe partly the reason, also shared somewhat by Dr Mahathir, to overindulge Najib. Najib was highly familiar and fastidious about his rights and pedigree but was obviously not equally sensitised to his immense responsibilities.

Underperforming PMs

Thirty three years after the passing of these two great prime ministers we seem to have entered a conversation and contestation for who could be regarded as the country’s worst prime minister. It can’t be the man who is justly incarcerated as a dazed dozen-year denizen-cum-guest of the government in Kajang. He had many excellent attributes but he faltered, fouled up and failed to defend himself convincingly from serious CBT and corruption charges after his UMNO lost a general election.

Today we have a prime minister who has been imprisoned twice for allegedly committing certain offences. He could, if he does not measure up become an important candidate for this new contestation for our worst prime minister.

Pointers For PMX

For this reason we have to prim our current prime minister, PMX for his first anniversary as prime minister and assist him where we can to make a success of the difficult and daunting challenges that he faces in his remaining tenure.

It is perhaps most important that he galvanises the vast majority of Malaysians to come together, unite, understand the challenges and persuade them to make some concerted efforts to make some sacrifices to take the country out of the untenable situation we are in. PMX's government cannot embark on this humongous project without the people's explicit support. He needs to communicate with the people, listen to them, interact with the people in different segments of society and make some very difficult decisions and choices.

Corruption, Confusion and Complexes

The main problem today, as it has been for decades is pervasive individual and institutional corruption in the public as well as the private sector. The prime minister is well placed to tackle corruption within the public sector whether it involves political leaders or the bureaucracy. Political operatives involved in corruption can be identified, investigated, charged, tried , shamed and sometimes be put in the slammer. Jailing them and confiscating their assets is the most effective weapon in this fight against corruption.

Corruption, as an individual or group phenomenon comes from a complete disregard of the larger, wider interests of society and a lack of loyalty and patriotism to the country. It can be attributed in a crass and crude form in more than one way to the following:

*Tribalism- sense of belonging to a powerful tribe where corruption is acceptable, tolerated, forgiven and not fussed on in the undying belief that the state or its governance system can cope with, absorb or withstand it. Given these considerations , individuals,associates, business vendors, entrepreneurs, bankers aligned to the ruling government delude themselves that they are exempted in a strange sort of way from the provisions of the law.

*Turpitude- weakness for bribes, blandishments, lust and greed. Public servants with a weakness for high living, escapades involving sleaze and sex, gambling and games with betting involved would become particularly vulnerable.

*Treason- divided loyalty to the country. Attempting to serve another external power, movement or a MNC while occupying a high position of authority and power in the public service. A conflicted person or persons in this situation will sell out the nation consciously or unconsciously.

PMX’s Priorities

PMX’s main challenge was that he inherited an extremely difficult situation at at least two levels- bureaucratic and financial. The bureaucracy, rather bloated and burgeoning was accustomed to some mollycoddling, praise and periodic salary revisions but not accustomed to strict or draconian disciplinary actions or measures on performance and productivity. Productivity, meritocracy and truthfulness became secondary to obedience, obsequiousness and the need to get along with superiors and political bosses..

Helplessness With Bureaucracy

Anwar has not been able to sack or remove from office a single senior bureaucrat who would willy nilly be responsible for policy blunders and some of the disasters faced by the nation. Take, for instance,the pension issue on which the Federal Court has ruled clearly. It is somewhat clear that the government is unable to execute or implement the court’s decisive ruling. At the same time the government had failed to explain the delay in implementing the decision.

Who was responsible for creating such an atrociously anomalous embarrassing situation where salaries were revised and implemented in 2013 without appropriate consideration for the public sector employees who had retired prior to that date. Identify the senior most officials of the Public Services Department, the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney- General’s Chambers responsible for this fiasco. They don’t have to be charged but they can be easily identified and their titles can be withdrawn to show that officials who commit blunders of this nature would be held responsible ultimately. It is an unkind, harsh measure but an essential one. The Tunku, it would be recalled had striped a close associate of his of the high ‘Tun ‘ title.

Civil servants, especially those sitting in GLCs which have lost millions of ringgit should also be identified as toothless tigers that did not satisfactorily perform their fiduciary duties. Publish and publicise this list of civil servants who did not perform to expectations. Identify those who performed, acknowledge what they did and give them the well-deserved place of honour.

For those government servants still in service it is essential to impress upon them that they are servants of the people with an obligation to perform their duties diligently with unalloyed loyalty to the Agong and Malaysia. The obligatory duty is to provide loyal, dedicated, impartial, efficient and ethical service to every individual, institution, including NGOs. They must realise that their work is not for their immediate workplace environment or their tainted superiors, political masters but for their entire nation. In this way too they would be weaned away from rather parochial thinking about themselves, their immediate families, friends and relatives.

The Public Services Department, in all its teaching, training and instruction manuals must inculcate this spirit of loyalty and service to the nation.

It falls on PMX, given the country’s weak finances, to raise this issue to obtain the maximum benefit of every ringgit spent by the entire government machinery. The allocation for operational expenditure partly on account of unsustainable emoluments and pensions leaves a paltry sum for development expenditure.

Neglected Areas

It is time to reduce the food import bill. It is important to have conversations on how the public sector salaries and and pensions benefits can be reduced in the medium and long term. Currently, according to Khazanah Research the total food imports for 2021 amounted to an estimated RM79 billion. This is not an alarming figure considering that our food exports when palm oil is included is RM 93 billion. Increased domestic food production will help reduce this relatively large foreign exchange outflow, create employment and nurture the local farming and fishing communities.

Undeniably certain food items are produced more efficiently and economically in certain countries but this should not be a consideration for reducing local food production. The cost of food produced abroad will also go up eventually and the current administration must continue to allot land for agricultural activity. Land allotted for housing and industrial use that is not utilised may offer scope for intensive food production activities. We seem to have vast facts of land lying fallow.

The prime minister has not come out with a plan to reduce the number of foreign workers. Over the medium term the number of foreign workers has to be reduced. Remittances by foreign workers do not help our economy or society. This has to be one of his priorities.

The government, both in its internal and foreign policy formulation seems to be in somewhat of a state on confusion. Far too much religion has been brought into the mainstream of government in areas ranging from education, health, inter community relations, sports and cultural activities. With the exception of Sabah and Sarawak the rest of the country seems to function like an appendage of some orthodox Arab Muslim nation with dress codes , use of Arabic terms and an unscientific and unrealistic interpretation of events in West Asia.

Malaysia occupies an important and strategic place in the vibrant heart of Southeast Asia. The nation enjoys a harmonious, holistic and solid relationship with its Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Thai and Singapore neighbours. Beyond these neighbours there are Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea. With the exception of a controversial regime in Myanmar which is caught in self inflicted invidiousness all the other countries share the virtuous values of an abiding ASEAN outlook and solidarity. In its domestic policies the country has to explore opportunities for closer bilateral and trilateral cooperation with these neighbours. Malaysia's primary focus should be on our nearest neighbours to forge understanding and the economic development of our people in these border areas.

If PMX can be persuaded to focus more on our domestic socioeconomic situation, expand the government's revenue base and reorder the nation to its immediate ASEAN environment he will be on the right track.

With a relatively small foreign service, a much depreciated ringgit, depleted monetary and material reserves and pressing domestic issues PMX must make calls and show by example the need for sacrifices. He can ask the people to decide if we need executive jets for our leaders, more foreigners running businesses in our inner cities, more monstrous glass and concrete towers in our FT area, more private vehicles on subsidised fuel on our roads, more traffic jams, accidents and fatalities on our roads and more mismatched people for our workforce.

We need a reasonable number of some English-speaking Malaysians , a well rounded and educated citizenry and enhanced mutual trust and understanding within our country.

Contentious issues of an international, emotional or of a particular nature deserve our principled attention and support. But we must remember they are of peripheral significance , not a core or life-and-death matter for us. These peripheral matters we can react to in a mature, measured way with meaningful and munificent language. We shouldn't feel besieged or betrayed by the way these distant, difficult and disturbing issues develop.

On the Palestine issue Malaysia has taken a clear unequivocal stand. We have to continue this policy and engage more constructively with the sponsors and supporters of Israel to adopt a more humanitarian approach to the Palestinian cause.The prime minister should not be perceived as exposing the country to new, novel and dangerous attacks and threats to the country on account of his over-exuberant espousal of the Palestine issue or any international cause. It is better for him to err on the side of caution and care for our beloved nation. Taking on Tel Aviv will not be on a level playing field for Malaysia.

PMX must realise that the country is not in the solid financial and economical position it was in decades ago. He cannot be a surly second Dr Mahathir Mohamad. We spirited away that edge a long time ago.

If asked, I would just say: 'Just hang in there. Reserve the best for the home ground, Mr Prime Minister. Wait, be patient to do the home run.'

M Santhananaban

November 3, 2023