COMMENT “Transform” holds a big edge over “change” in Barisan Nasional’s world. Its GE13 manifesto speaks transform or transformation on 15 occasions, while mentioning change four times. The words converge in this stark declaration: “Real changes have taken place, but the journey to total transformation will take time”.

This begs two huge questions. First, is total change necessary to bring about total transformation? Second, how long will total transformation take? The answers to both reveal the dim prospects and hollow contents of BN’s promises.

On the first question, BN’s manifesto, of course, asserts that the same party, holding continuous power, can fundamentally transform a nation.

NONEBN head Najib Abdul Razak indirectly addressed the issue in imploring voters to not change the regime in power, on the grounds that it has already effected changes under transformation plans.

But history shows that robust transformation is either driven by authoritarian rule or democratic change of government.

Autocracy can grow and restructure the economy but not foster maturity in society and democracy.

Elected new administrations can ride on popular andates and break free from power structures of the past.

Elected regimes that retain power, if they change at all, tend to do so slowly, selectively, and partially.

South Korea and Taiwan were governed by military regimes through their rapid transformative years of the 1960s until the mid-1980s, when they democratised.

Moreover, their transformation progressed further because real democracy was allowed to take root, including basic safeguards like fair elections, free media, and independent public institutions.

Right on target, BN’s trumpeted “total transformation” omits concrete and genuine plans to mature our democracy, empower people and make government more accountable.

More recently, elected new governments from the late 1990s in Latin American countries like Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina instituted bold reforms contrary to predecessors who acquiesced to the demands of domestic elites and global finance.

These transformative governments have engendered more inclusiveness and less inequality, while sustaining economic growth.

Odds of world history stacked against this

Can BN defy these precedents and transform Malaysia while continuing to rule?

The odds of world history are stacked against this, and the unlikelihood is compounded by the smallness of BN’s transformations, lateness of its responsive gestures, and its resistance to necessary fundamental change.

To the second question - the timeline for achieving total transformation - 2020 remains the presumed target.

That’s only seven years away, two short of five. BN’s manifesto thus invites us to ask how much further we might transform, based on its promises and claims, and our experiences since 2008.

The manifesto aspires to build educational excellence. But we unceasingly hear of declining quality in our schooling system, and our performance in the international Trends in the Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) keeps dropping.

Moreover, between 2007 and 2011 our scores suffered the worst decline of all 45 countries participating in TIMSS.

The education system - and society as a whole - is failing current and near future generations, judging by these deficiencies in basic knowledge, aptitude and curiousity, as well as a sense of responsibility and resourcefulness that employers widely lament as generally lacking.

The manifesto pledges to nurture our youth and be an inclusive society. Of course, any political campaign will say that. But for five years Umno-BN has swaggered around as an old boys’ establishment, scarcely cultivating any young leaders and raising not one young woman of prominence.

BN’s slate of new, young election candidates, projected as a refreshing response to the rakyat’s wants, arrives pretty late and in unconvincing style.

The manifesto extends the national goal of reaching high income status, with the promise of 3.3 million new jobs, of which 2 million, or 60.6 percent, will be in “high income sectors”.

The stratospheric figure is curious. BN targets an average of 660,000 new jobs annually over the next five; over the past five net employment increased by under 250,000 per year.

The income part is more interesting, though. Instead of generating good, well-paying jobs as a policy objective, alongside educational transformation, the manifesto couches the issue in terms of sectors.

Manufacturing could be considered a high income sector, but most of its jobs are of the low skill, low wage variety.

Perhaps this is a sleight of tongue that acknowledges the failures of an economy too entrenched in its ways, while slipping in the “high income” catchphrase.

But there is no escaping the fact that earnings, especially for young workers, have stagnated most acutely. Over the past five years, vacancies listed with Jobsmalaysia comprised 62.5 percent lowest wage elementary jobs and agricultural workers, 25.8 percent low to middle wage clerical, production and service workers, and 11.7 percent high wage technical, professional and managerial positions.

The promise of 60 percent of new jobs in “high income sectors” rings resoundingly hollow.

From 2009 to 2011, real average EPF savings (after accounting for inflation) of 16-25 year-olds dropped by 2.6 percent per year, and grew by only 0.7 percent per year for 26-30 year-olds, much less than the 3.4 percent growth that 41-45 year-olds enjoyed and the 3.1 percent overall average.

Making good governance a priority

The manifesto makes good governance a priority, and notes how increased pay in the public sector demonstrates that commitment.

On another vital element, however, it remains deathly silent: reforming the bureaucracy and granting it autonomy so that it puts the national interest over the ruling coalition’s.

It makes no commitment to shift the mentality and structure from the current state, in which BN and civil service are one, toward a mature system in which public institutions serve the rakyat and support whichever party holds power.

BN’s manifesto claims to treat corruption as a “highest priority”. Yet over five years we have repeatedly witnessed obviously suppressed prosecution of damning corruption allegations, oppression of whistleblowers, and tacit approval of power abuses.

Pakatan Rakyat has committed to civil service autonomy and broad democratic reforms, blown the whistle on high level corruption, groomed a young and capable cadre of new leaders, and maintained non-race based politics while espousing inclusive policies.

Yes, things will change, regardless of the outcome of GE13.

But as for transformation, the choice is between “playing safe” with a change-resistant regime contradicting its own professed transformation, or taking a chance on a change-bent coalition that has promised transformations that may well make itself more accountable and transparent, and open to be voted out in future.

Can we expect transformation without regime change? Give me a break!

LEE HWOK AUN is a senior lecturer in development studies at Universiti Malaya.