By Projek Sama
The year 2024 was marked by wars and political turbulence – some were unexpected, from the six-hour self-coup by South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol to the abrupt meltdown of the Assad regime in Syria.
From Donald Trump’s upcoming control of the executive, legislature and judiciary in the US, to the electoral growth of far-right parties in the UK and Germany, democracies are threatened by a worrying global surge of authoritarianism and populism, fuelled by social media and big tech.
At home in Malaysia, many are shocked by the video-filmed scandal involving politicians bribing lawmakers and ministers in Sabah for mine-prospecting licences. This is reminiscent of the “correct, correct, correct” Lingam tape scandal in 2007, which sparked public anger that eventually built up the political tsunami in 2008.
Following the snail’s pace investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the “couldn’t care less” arrogance demonstrated by some implicated politicians, the public disquiet especially in Sabah – except for the year-end protest by Universiti Malaysia Sabah students and Fahmi Reza – suggests two possibilities.
First, that the people of Malaysia, including in Sabah, have given up hope because they see no clean alternatives.
Second, this is just the calm before the storm and political corruption may be punished by electoral upheaval against hypocritical champions of reforms, starting with the upcoming Sabah state election, which must be called by the end of 2025.
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It is alarming that the high-profile defendants in Najib Razak’s court cluster, from Deputy PM Zahid Hamidi to Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor, get to walk free on a discharge amounting or not amounting to an acquittal because of the Attorney General’s Chamber’s decision to withdraw charges or to seemingly deliberately fail in filing appeals in time or formulating legally sound charges.
Most shockingly, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim made a comment suggesting that some cases pursued after 2018 were politically motivated.
With arch-rivals Umno and Pas organising a rally on 6 January to support the claimed royal addendum calling for Najib to be placed under home detention despite his adamant denial of guilt and three ongoing cases, with the PM’s comment about selective prosecution, the many are left wondering if this is a joint message by the “Madani” (civil and compassionate) government and the opposition Perikatan Nasional to the people that Malaysia is officially a two-class (dua-darjat) society where VIP criminals do not deserve to be jailed when they steal millions and billions.
We have also seen endless episodes of culture wars, where ethno-religious sentiments are deliberately whipped up, often with fake news, misinformation and hate speech, to cause political vengeance, economic disruption and even domestic terrorism.
Culture wars do not happen just because the people of Malaysia are ethnically, religiously, linguistically, culturally or politically diverse. They happen because politicians are not given effective incentives to compete on policy ideas instead of identity markers.
Unbelievably, four instances (involving the use) of Molotov cocktails happened in a year, with not a single suspect prosecuted in court.
The first attack in January partially burned down the home and cars of MP Ngeh Koh Ham, who narrowly escaped with his wife. The next three in March targeted KK Super Mart outlets in Bidor, Perak; Kuantan Pahang; and Kuching, Sarawak.
The phenomenal failure of the police under Anwar to defend law and order was starkly contrasted with the swift actions of the then police under former PM Najib in the arson of the Metro Tabernacle Church in Kuala Lumpur in January 2010. The police back then caught suspects within days and two brothers were sentenced to jail for five years in August.
Overseas or at home, these developments remind us that political stability and accountability cannot be taken for granted.
As much as politicians and political parties are letting us down, we must not lose hope.
We must not lose our voice in demanding the institutional reforms, which are not ‘nice-to-have’ luxuries that some try to frame as elitist demands, but ‘must -have’ necessities without which Malaysia cannot rebuild a healthy environment for global and domestic investments after the 1MDB disaster and everyone will suffer in bread-and-butter terms.
With this, we invite the people to jointly urge the Madani government and the opposition to work towards the following reforms:-
Rule of law – The Attorney General Chambers, the MACC and the police must be reformed to ensure independence and impartiality when applying and enforcing the laws.
While Anwar’s announcement of mid-2025 as the timeline for the separation of the Attorney General’s Chambers and public prosecution is heartening, we call upon the government to publish a green paper (an open-ended document to invite deliberations with set parameters) or a white paper (a concrete proposal) in the first quarter before tabling the bills to Parliament.
Reforms must not only be done, but they must be done in a transparent, participatory and accountable manner.
Clean competitive politics: – The Sabah mining licences scandal underlines two flaws in our dysfunctional legislatures and party politics:
- the absence of a political finance law and public funding
- the insignificance of lawmaking and policy scrutiny that lawmakers are courting voters by throwing money around.
To root out the Sabah mining licences scandal which may also happen in other legislatures, Prime Minister Anwar should declare a timeline for realising these reforms:
- a political financing act which enables public funding of political parties
- laws for equitable constituency development funds
- a parliamentary services act
- the empowerment of opposition MPs and government backbenchers with more parliamentary select committees, supported with sufficient resources, non-governmental business time in parliamentary sittings, the recognition of and resources for a shadow cabinet or executive council
- an independent Electoral Commission answerable to Parliament as part of the greater effort for a level playing field
Political stability – Even if there is no present danger of government collapse, the federal government should still introduce a fixed-term parliament act and a confirmatory vote of confidence for every new prime minister after his or her appointment under Article 40(2)(a) of the Federal Constitution, and the state governments should bring the same amendments to their state constitution.
Decentralisation – The Malaysia Agreement 1963 negotiation should be enlarged to include the peninsular states to facilitate a ‘whole of Malaysia’ conversation between the federal government, the regional governments of Sabah and Sarawak, and the 11 state governments of the peninsula. The aim should be to produce a comprehensively and carefully planned decentralisation roadmap, with the Malaysia Agreement being the main pillar and central guiding document.
The people must speak up to make sure 2025 will not be another year filled with corruption scandals and culture wars over ethnicity, religion, language, region or gender. There are always those who benefit when the people fight or feel despair.
So, let’s gear up to resist and push for reforms! – Projek Sama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
