ELECTION campaigns are under way for the upcoming Johor polls, and it is clear that doing or saying unintelligent things is not a barrier to political success.

Depending on one’s definition of an idiot, not all politicians are idiots. But plenty are.

At least 51% of voters assume that the current in-government politicians are despicable. They enact bad policies, and constantly change their minds and reverse them. They are weak and not fit to lead. They promise improvements, but are obviously lying and subsequently make an unpopular move.

Many are clearly in it for themselves.

Let’s take a look at politicians in the current ruling coalition. People who support them claimed that the politicians are very intelligent, but are merely pretending to be buffoons. This underscores the point – an intelligent person has to feign stupidity to achieve political success.

Every other day, he or she says something false or outrageous, yet continues to grow in the polls. He or she seems to be getting by on issues irrelevant to improving facets of the country and has no thoroughly thought-out policy plans.

On the daily, we hear or read about a politician saying something false or outrageous, and decry the quality of our politicians.

Logically, we would want an intelligent person who understands the best approaches and methods to run the country in the best possible way. But no, the majority of the people seem drawn to demonstrations of questionable intellectual abilities.

Both the people and politicians are the cause and problem. Politics requires people to be involved. Malaysians, generally, are put off by intellectual and complex subjects and discussions in any case. If they have no experience in a particular issue or find it too daunting, they will not want to take part in the issue as doing so will require a lot of effort and time; they will just switch off.

With increasing polarisation, people of various races get their news from echo chambers that reflect and reinforce their side of the polarised split. They do not like being told things they do not want to hear.

These politicians know that the people or race they represent need to feel that they are superior to others to maintain their sense of self-worth and social status. The proliferation of personalised media increasingly means that voters cling to their own facts, assumptions, beliefs and race.

So when a politician who is demonstrably less intelligent says simple things that support inherent prejudices and deny uncomfortable facts, then all the better for his or her supporters.

Messages surrounding traditional divides of race, religion and reform are much easier to deliver than a clear policy programme, and fuelling discontent is much easier than engaging with the diversity in the country.

These politicians also know that those who live in rural areas or smaller towns can “relate” to them, as the idea that rural folk are being represented by someone outside their ideas of an elitist alarms them.

Voters, generally, favour policies that enhance their own well-​being with little consideration for long-​term outcomes or that of future generations. Politicians are rewarded for pandering to voters’ immediate demands and desires.

It is an unfortunate situation, but it is the way a lot of the people’s minds work or at least 49% of the total population.

That is why all political parties have a few of such politicians – mostly a series of less intelligent personalities who are confident and persuasive in making extravagant promises but miserably failing to meet them – as representations, as they know that intelligent people can be a bad choice.

Malaysians spend far more effort and time focusing on something trivial that they understand (i.e. the call for a ban on alcohol sale in convenience stores) than something complicated that they do not understand (i.e. the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal).

The former offers far more scope for contribution and influence. Again, Malaysians do love trivial things, and with less intelligent politicians condensing down the ban on alcohol sale to a brief but inaccurate explanation relating to religion, they are a potential vote-winner.

What we are seeing today is a fully professionalised political class, with almost 90% of present politicians exhibiting stunningly little non-political experience. This is far from the ideal profile one would want in political leaders.

What was seen in the past elections is that a sizeable section of the people voted on racial and religious lines. If a party whipped up religious sentiments in favour of one racial group, another tried to whip up passion and instilling fears for another. And then, there was this cheap politics of bribing the voters with huge amounts of cash and other incentives.

Or is it a fact that politicians think the people are also idiots who keep voting for them despite getting cheated every five years?

It is the aim and objective of every politician to win elections, and to do so, they need the most votes. To do that, they need to appeal to as many voters as possible. In polls, what every smart politician is trying to do is behave in a way that he or she hopes will appeal to the typical voter.

Politicians act this way because they respond rationally to the incentives democracy creates. If voters are well-informed, then political campaigns will resemble peer-reviewed economics thesis. But not many voters or potential voters are like that; most are biased, passionate, poorly informed, overconfident and tribalistic.

Most know little about politics and public policies, and do a poor job of evaluating the information they do know. As a result, politicians who want to win have strong incentives to manipulate political ignorance to their advantage. Those who value truth above getting power are unlikely to win office or stay in office long.

The stupidity of some people, who still fall and vote for the return of politicians who blatantly lie to the public after reassuring them that they did no wrong in the scandals in which they have their fingerprints is mindboggling and defies logical rational.

When it comes to political ignorance, not a single party, including the newly formed MUDA can claim the moral high ground. Ignorance is not only confined to the supporters of the opposing party, it is widespread among supporters of every party and even worse among the swing-voters who often tip the scales of electoral outcomes.

The solution to the problem of political ignorance is not a simple matter of getting rid of a few unscrupulous politicians, but requires real progress in changing the structure of incentives facing both politicians and voters, where the former has strong incentives to exploit ignorance for political advantage and the latter has strong incentives to be ignorant and irrational.

If we are to achieve change, we should begin by acknowledging that we have a serious systemic problem.

Perhaps when the enough people experience a deterioration of lifestyle, enough people will be jolted into rethinking their political views, recognise what had happened and act to turn things around.

We can only hope that this process begins before irreparable damage is been done to the environment or our social structure, and that the reversal takes place non-violently. – February 27, 2022.

* FLK 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.