Malaysia, Mussolini and change

Last week, Barbara Ehrenreich, a seasoned and astute observer of the US political scene, explained the Barack Obama ‘phenomenon’ and its appeal in these terms: ‘The promise of ‘change’ is what drives the Obama juggernaut, and ‘change’ means wanting out of wherever you are now. It can even mean wanting out so badly that you don't much care exactly what that change will be".

Obama as the freshman senator from Illinois crafts a campaign slogan which counterposes ‘the future versus the past’, to distance himself from Washington’s establishment insiders who are deemed to be tainted by years of compromising deals and business-as-usual sleaze. Click here for an intriguing discussion on Obama’s economic advisers.

In 2005, Koizumi Junichiro, the incumbent prime minister and an LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) veteran, arguably pulled off an even more amazing feat when he tapped into a wellspring of disaffection among the Japanese electorate.

Disaffection towards what was widely perceived as a bloated and corrupt status quo - repeated scandals and a seedy history of reciprocal favors between LDP factions and their business and bureaucratic associates (‘iron triangles’), post-retirement placements in cushy private sector jobs for senior technocrats (amakudari, descent from heaven), cosseted civil servants who ‘continued enjoying their golfing retreats while the rest of us suffered the brunt of the collapsing bubble’, etc.

The privatisation of Japan Post (the world’s largest financial institution, and in effect a discretionary supplementary budget for the incumbent government) was adopted as Koizumi’s key campaign slogan for (market-oriented) reforms.

This reform had little to do with enterprise efficiency or client satisfaction, but was largely cipher for anti-establishment sentiment and distaste for pork-barrel politics (let the ‘free’ market sort out cronyism, a familiar mantra).

Posing as a reformer and a crusader for change who was willing to confront entrenched interests (indeed, to ‘destroy’ the LDP if necessary), Koizumi went on to win a historic landslide in the September 2005 elections.

Are we experiencing a variant of this resurgent anti-status quo sentiment in Malaysia? Some incumbent Barisan Nasional politicians are clearly rattled. As polling day approaches (March 8, 2008), their unease mounts along with the increasing numbers of electorate who are persuaded that this time around, a vote for the ruling parties amounts to an endorsement of the unending abuse and lack of accountability which has been encouraged by uninterrupted tenure in public office.

An escalating mood for protest voting, no matter how unimpressive the alternative candidate, is clearly an alarming scenario for incumbents.

Hence the exhortations to not vote ‘emotionally’, to be wary of the cumulative consequences of individual protest votes on the ‘electoral balance’, etc, etc. But the incumbents are well aware that among many constituencies, they ignore this palpable mood for change at their own peril. Unable to offer ‘change’ as the incumbents in power, ‘re-invention’ (ie, internal change) has emerged as their preferred slogan.

There are many changes one could hope for in the coming elections. When Gordon Brown was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997, one of his first acts as New Labour’s incoming finance minister was to grant the Bank of England operational independence in monetary policy, and thus responsibility for setting interest rates.

From an institutional perspective, this might seem like a remarkable devolution of power by a politician, who as a group are generally loath to surrender powers and prerogatives. But London vies with New York as the pre-eminent global center for finance, the City’s financial services account for 10 percent of the United Kingdom’s gross domestic product, so the interests of finance capital ineluctably take precedence over the political ambitions of finance ministers.

Meaningful safeguards

As Malaysian lay citizens, we would hope (no, we demand) that those who seek public office would display the same degree of self-sacrifice.

Not in the interests of powerful constituencies, nor in the interests of self-perpetuating tenure in public office, but more importantly, in the interests of effective safeguards against future abuses of public office such as we have been subjected to these last decades.

It would be sad indeed, if democracy (like free markets?) were merely a cry of the excluded.

We expect our aspiring office holders, if successful in their quest for public office, to speedily put in place meaningful safeguards for transparent and accountable governance.

The concerns are well-known: a diminished and severely eroded judiciary, electoral blackmail, our shackled media and academia, rights of assembly and expression, ISA and police abuses, ACA partiality and lack of credibility, access to information of legitimate public interest, etc.

Along with other urgent issues of social justice, unjust discrimination, and developmental priorities, Malaysian citizens shall henceforth consider their contributions in such matters as key yardsticks by which we would gauge their performance as future holders of public office.

PROF CHAN CHEE KHOON is the Convenor, Health & Social Policy Research Cluster, Women's Development Research Centre (Kanita), Universiti Sains Malaysia.