What the public aren’t told can hurt their leaders

The current uncertainty over who will succeed Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim as the Selangor menteri besar brings into focus several issues involving the Selangor state constitution, the role of the Sultan and the political process of determining the leader the state government.

Among the many questions that have preoccupied legal minds as well as the public at large in recent days is whether a menteri besar who has lost the support of the majority of the State Legislative Assembly can continue to occupy that post without addressing a fundamental dilemma: In whose name does he run the administration if he does not represent the majority?

Obversely, the question that arises is whether there is any room for discretion on the choice of Menteri Besar when a majority of the House has demonstrated its support for a certain assembly member.

This leads to the question of the Sultan’s role in the choice of menteri besar, and enough has been said about the matter to show that various shades of legal opinion will continue to feature in the debate even though the highest court of the land has made a definitive ruling on it in the Nizar v Zambry case of 2010.

In that landmark case, the Federal Court had accepted the exercise of discretion by the Sultan of Perak to appoint a menteri besar on the basis that he commanded the majority. If that ruling is held as the culminating argument on the particular point of law, that would have been the end of the matter. But the fact is that, at this writing, the people of Selangor are still waiting for a resolution to the MB crisis, meaning that the last word on the matter has yet to be said.

From the lay point of view, the distilled reality from this political brew is that arguments of every hue will be forwarded for and against a candidate because of an underlying political game that is being played out, rather than because a certain action is constitutional, just or even democratic.

It is in this context that the claim of PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to the menteri besar’s post can be in doubt, since the question should not arise after she had presented written proof that she enjoyed the support of 30 of the 56-member Selangor Assembly.

So, it may be expected that more confusion will continue to surround the question of Wan Azizah’s candidacy as menteri besar because the real issue is the weaknesses in the practice of democracy in our political culture.

To put it in other words, the current imbroglio merely exposes the fact that in key areas of governance, democratic norms are nudged aside by political expediency when the stakes become high enough.

It is instructive to retrace the current drama to see where these gaps in democratic practices show up, and among whom.

The starting point can be said to be when the PKR leadership decided that Khalid must be replaced as the MB, and PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli initiated the “Kajang move” in January with the aim of getting PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to take over from Khalid.

Why did Khalid need to be replaced? Why was Anwar going from federal to state level politics? Why force a by-election less than a year after the bruising 13th general election? There were many questions, but the answers were not only quite fanciful, but as later developments proved, were not necessarily the real truth.

Remember the spiel about the Kajang Move being Pakatan’s plan to get to Putrajaya through Selangor? All that has vanished into the background after push came to shove and Khalid had to be forced out.

Pakatan Rakyat supporters may be willing to give the coalition another chance despite the MB crisis, as a recent Merdeka Centre survey indicated, but surely there has been a loss of innocence about the conduct of its leaders.

There was clearly a dire need for information, which is the life-blood of democracy, but this episode shows that the practice of transparency and accountability in public representation is a nursling in the political culture of our country.

The people’s disquiet at the signs of a serious problem in the PKR leadership was aptly expressed then by former Bersih 2.0 co-chair Datuk S Ambiga, who said PKR must have an “overwhelmingly good reason” to ask its Kajang assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh to make way for Anwar.

“This is why people are angry,” she said. “I’m willing to give them the benefit of doubt but they owe the people an explanation,” Ambiga had said.

That explanation was not given to the voters, but released to PKR’s coalition partners in August, before Khalid was issued with a show cause letter for defying the party’s order to step down as MB in favour of Wan Azizah.

Much water had flowed under the bridge by then, with consequent damage to the democratic credentials of the main actors. It is important for our political parties and the greater civil society to recognise that systematic work is needed to plant the seeds of public disclosure in the political and public organisations that govern our lives.

In a more robust democracy, Khalid and his adversaries would have made their cases before a properly constituted public forum such as a standing committee of the state assembly instead of a party-level disciplinary board.

In the current episode, the PKR’s choice of its party platform to discipline Khalid has short-circuited the process of public disclosure of issues that concern the public interest and public funds. Furthermore, in sacking Khalid without a hearing, the party leaves itself open to the charge of ignoring due process, no matter what the justification for its action.

The unspoken message that emerges from the battle for the MB’s seat is that in the end, the people who voted for their leaders tend to be forgotten in the struggle for power at the top of the heap.

It is for the people to remind them that if they want to remain in favour, they must never be taken for granted. – August 30, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.