FORMER youth and sports minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman announced yesterday that he has applied to register his new party, the Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) with the Registrar of Societies. This new party, according to him, despite being led by young leaders (most of whom do not have any political background) will serve all Malaysians, regardless of age.

“They are keen to bring new politics into the country, so that we will no longer be bogged down with old politics that has made it difficult for us to move forward,” he had said.

Granted, this may be true. There may be a need for new things to be done in this country, but should we be so quick to believe the Muar MP, whose tenure was unremarkable at best? Lest we forget, he was (or still is) the blue-eyed boy of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, one of the most notorious leaders Malaysia and Southeast Asia has ever seen.

While there has been no formal announcements on the leadership of the party, Muda’s most vocal members seem to come from the same urban liberal millennial crowd – not exactly the ideal representation of Malaysian society as a whole. This “Bangsar bubble” party will likely gain many supporters from urban areas, such as Damansara, and will likely go no further than that. Despite whatever Syed Saddiq may say and how he tries to portray himself as a man of the people, the disconnect between him and the ordinary Malaysian is plain to see.

Syed Saddiq’s messiah complex and belief that he is the only one capable to lead Malaysian youth are troubling to say the least – he seems to think that whatever he is doing has never been done before.

This is ironic given that the term Muda itself was coined by a group of non-partisan Johor youth, even before the 14th general election. The original Muda was registered with the RoS under Pertubuhan Aktivis Negeri Johor, and heavily involved itself with the community by organising speaker corners while Syed Saddiq was campaigning on false promises, such as one millio jobs for youth and forgiving PTPTN debt nationwide.

The original Muda also went to the streets to participate in the democratic process (for example, during the ICERD rally) while Syed Saddiq only managed to give out vague sound bites to the media. The stark contrast between the two tells us the bigger picture: Syed Saddiq, despite everything he says, is out of touch with ordinary Malaysians.

And, this unfortunately extends to the party as well. Syed Saddiq’s Muda, being led by Twitter activists with no real experience on the ground and no real ideas about the political realities of the country, will not be able to be the dynamic platform Malaysian youth needs. It strives to be a “big tent” party while not having any core ideology at the moment, with “disrupting the political arena” being the only appeal it has right now.

Let us not discount Syed Saddiq’s political record, either. His short stay in Bersatu was mired with dozens of internal struggles, and he badly juggled the need to placate his more liberal supporters and maintain his relevance to the party’s more conservative grassroots members, to the point he had to offer positions in his ministry to Armada (Bersatu’s youth wing) members just to secure support.

This leads us to another issue: his failure to be a good politician needed by the rakyat. At the moment, despite his own cartel of supporters trying to suppress the issue, Syed Saddiq is trapped in the middle of an MACC investigation over embezzlement that occurred under his watch in the Youth and Sports Ministry. Just last year, the ministry was granted more than RM130 million to empower youth initiatives in Malaysia, but up til now, none of the projects have been realised.

While Malaysians were told by Dr Mahathir to work harder, Syed Saddiq managed to bag an additional RM5 million from the government for his Youth Power Club initiative (which was already given a huge sum of RM50 million). The president of this initiative, Rafiz Hakim Razali (who was also conveniently Armada treasurer) was even arrested by the MACC during the investigation.

While we may not know yet if the money was siphoned off for his own political slush fund, what we clearly know is his inability to truly represent the youth of the country. Even if he was not part of the embezzlement, the fact that it happened blatantly under his watch just goes to show that he is nothing but talk who is stuck on his own image and full of hubris.

There are many good and credible young Malaysian leaders. The sooner the youth of Malaysia realise this, the better. – September 18, 2020.

* Johan Arif reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.