MALAYSIA has now recorded five-digit new Covid-19 cases for three days in a row. As the pandemic rages on, with little to no signs of slowing down, our political actors cannot seem to strategise new ways to combat it nor show the slightest sense of empathy for what the rakyat is going through.

Rage and frustration have manifested themselves in the Bendera Putih and Bendera Hitam movements, and, day by day, the lines in front of service centres and NGOs continue to grow longer.

The owner of one of the largest supermarket chains in the country was in tears as he recollects that people are now stealing basic food items and not high-end goods to be resold as they used to. As Malaysians scrape the bottom of their barrels for whatever’s left, the latest political impasse demonstrates how distant the leadership is from the true extent to which Covid-19 has affected the people.

The anger Malaysians feel towards political elites has been brewing since the Sheraton Move. Being a keen follower of politics myself, I have wondered since then what it is about that incident that makes many Malaysians uneasy. In a previous article I argued that an incident like Sheraton is the perfect example of how a change of government mid-term, without elections, can fall within the ambit of the law but which implications go beyond what can be explained in legal or constitutional terms.

There are differing opinions about whether this government should be called “illegitimate” or “pengkhianat”, but even if they are not those things, I argue that the rage Malaysians feel today does stem from the fact that this government did not come into power through the vote.

Renowned democracy scholar Larry Diamond posits that the first leg of the “democratic triad” is popular sovereignty – rule by the people. A democracy demands that the people are empowered to “choose and replace their leaders in regular, free, and fair elections, that all adult citizens are able to vote free from intimidation and obstruction, and that candidates and parties are free to compete and campaign.”

The ability for a people to choose, and remove, the men and women who govern them is a sacred right. Unfortunately, in too many countries around the world today, that right is being suppressed. In America, Republican states are making it difficult for blacks and other minorities to vote, a worrying downward spiral for a nation still recovering from four years of democratic backsliding under Trump.

Diamond’s positioning of popular sovereignty as the first amongst the triad (the second being liberty and the third, rule of law) is significant in trying to make sense of the increasing public anger with our politics.

Part of the promise of democracy is that you get as equal a chance at picking your preferred candidate as any other person, but you also must accept the possibility that other people will choose a different candidate, and you will probably need to live with the rule of a leader you did not choose (of course, the assumption here is that elections are free and fair, a topic for another day).

In the process of governing, politicians are bound to make bad decisions and more than some will employ authoritarian tactics to control the people. The second leg of the triad, liberty, is meant to grant rights to the people to question, criticise and organise demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction over such leaders before they get the chance to vote those leaders out – if they choose to do so – in the next election.

Why is this important to unpack? The beauty of democracy is, even though the person who holds the reins of power is incompetent or evil, as a citizen, you are able to challenge his rule through the freedoms of speech, assembly and expression, to choose a better candidate during elections and to not be prosecuted for making those choices.

The democratic triad ensures that one does not have to suffer permanently under the rule of an evil authoritarian. The democratic triad also means that if you, as an individual, feel that you are capable of doing a better job than the current people in power, you can nominate yourself as a candidate and run for elections. If you are able to convince a majority of people to vote for you, you will win.

There are instances when you complain about the sorry state of leadership in the country, the answer you get is “well, this is the government you voted for.” Although painful to hear, this is the promise of democracy – you might not like the people who govern the country, but you have chances during and outside of elections to change those people.

Now, let us think about the current situation in Malaysia. The government’s mishandling of Covid-19 that has led to a paralysed healthcare system, a wrecked economy and hundreds of suicides is not only being met with anger, but a disbelief that this is not even a government that won the right to rule through the electoral process. It is difficult to reply “well, this is the government you voted for” when Malaysians express their incredulity at the nonchalance with which human lives are being handled and treated.

Our democracy is such that Malaysians do not get to pick their Prime Minister. Despite this, I argue that something was robbed from Malaysians that night at Sheraton, which underlies these intense feelings of resentment, outrage and hopelessness. Our frustration with the current government is not a tangible, explicit feeling that we can grasp on to. It is subliminal, subconscious, but it is there and should not be taken lightly.

Human beings are driven by the need to feel ownership of things around them – and government is no exception. Fresh elections might not fulfil the fantasy of some Malaysians for a stable government, as all the political parties are split in many different ways, but at the very least we will be ruled by politicians we had the opportunity to choose. That is supposed to be democracy’s promise to us. That promise was robbed and must be returned to us once the pandemic is better controlled. – July 16, 2021.

*Aira Azhari is research manager at the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS).

* 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.