THE elections are upon us again, and the usual banter that comes with it. A ritual of sorts prior to the elections would be the tussle for seats between the component parties of both the government and opposition fronts.

The reason for this is simple – the more seats you control, the bigger your voice. In the event your coalition wins, this translates to more say and control over that state government’s policies and resources. For the Federal government, this further means control of key federal ministries and agencies. All the horse-trading occurring now is to ascertain each party’s positions as knights of the realm.

We carry much of our colonial heritage with us – Parliament, a first-past-the-post elections system, and unfortunately, race-based politics. What should have been done with long ago has unfortunately been allowed to survive and even worsen, when we stubbornly held onto this increasingly irrelevant yet dangerously overused system instead of embracing the multiracial parties present in both coalitions.

Development funds in the country, today, sixty years on, is still given according to race. This forces the parties, even the multiracial ones, to seek both relevance and funding by claiming legitimacy as champions of a particular race, even within a multiracial context. For example, this forces DAP or Gerakan to claim to speak more for Indians compared to MIC.  

Over the years, the composition of races have made it increasingly difficult to sustain both national harmony and still play the race card. Why? The non-Malay, non-Muslims have steadily been declining while the Malay-Muslims have grown in numbers. There has also been an increase in new communities – Indonesian-Malaysian, Bangladeshi-Malaysian, Cambodian-Malaysian and so on – while awareness on native rights and Borneo have also went up.

Yet, the national mainstream political narrative still adamantly revolves around Malay-Chinese-Indian-Dan Lain-Lain. This is dangerously imbalanced and if we continue to disregard the numbers and follow the antiquated propaganda, eventually you will find yourself representing a misrepresentation of the actual scenario on the ground, or a disconnect between politics and reality.

The last twenty years also saw an increase in religious-themed politics in Malaysia. This global trend manifested in Malaysia on multiple fronts – polemics between religions, between Muslim ideologies and between political parties taking side with or against these arguments. Previously non-issues have become hot topics and non-relevant people have become the new political champions of these now-issues.

The danger is with these many new things in play, division of seats becomes trickier, as the best way to win the sympathy votes for a particular stance is to put the face of that struggle as candidates. The problem with non-career politicians or politicians who have taken a hard line stance against or for a particular religious issue, are that they usually finds very little wiggle room left for compromise. While this is against the spirit of politics and tolerance in general, for Malaysia, it has the added effect of potentially greatly damaging the relationship between communities.

Then we have the politics of Borneo. Long seen as a traditional vote bank for the ruling coalition, inroads by opposition parties, coupled with a resurgence of local parties have brought previously dormant questions about autonomy and unique identity back to the forefront. These need to be tackled tactfully by both ‘national’ leaderships, as neither side would bode well with a strong backlash by people who are tired of being taken for granted, and who cherish their unique cultural identity and interreligious harmony.

Or maybe a backlash is exactly what they need.

Seat division between component parties and candidates should be as much about nation building and a progressive and strong Malaysia, as it is about appeasing various demands and keeping the local party warlords and kingmakers happy. It is perhaps convenient to think, and even a bit naïve to believe, that it’s about ‘winning’ first, and changes will come once we’ve secured five more years, or overthrown the current government.

Building a country while maintaining peace and harmony is no easy task, and it starts by putting people in the legislative halls that are capable of doing that; rational people who are able to speak beyond their own backyards and racial groups and across ideological boundaries, even if it displeases the party cadres.

Political party leaders, as candidate leaders for the country, should be able to rise above party politics in this instance, and place enough capable and level-headed people, prone more to compromise and dialogue as opposed to coercion and imposition.

A balance in the legislative halls is more than just race, religion, geography and politics. It should also be a balance between fervour with logic, intelligence with rhetoric and rationale with fist-shaking. 

Or it will just be about who has the bigger gang and louder voice, at the peril of all else. – November 14, 2017.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.