We need better MPs

At one time, Gloria De Piero was considered to be one of the more famous faces in the British media. She was a researcher for a TV station for a while but then dedicated herself to politics and public service. Today she is a member of the House of Commons and was recently elevated to the position of Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities in the Labour party.

Her views on women’s rights are well known. She wants to see more women in Parliament and in public service, and believes their increased presence can dramatically change the way the country is governed.

She is particularly scathing about the elites who control British politics: more than half the members of the British Parliament are millionaires and more than half of the Cabinet are men who graduated from Oxford or Cambridge. Her point is that these leaders are so far removed from the lives of ordinary British people that they hardly understand the problems the public faces, let alone even think of the solutions. She believes that leaders don’t need to come out of the elite universities—what’s important is that leaders must be able to empathise with people and make sacrifices in the line of public service.

We in Malaysia are in a similar situation, but for different reasons. We too face a a clear mismatch between the kind of leaders we have and the kind we need. We are not particulary bothered about whether our Members of Parliament graduated from elite universities or from mediocre ones and we don’t even care if they have good degrees or bought them from the shelves. No, our MPs are generally selected based on their positions in their respective political parties.

If they are from a religious party, chances are they were chosen because they were considered to be “ulama” or because they come from a religious background. If they are from a non-Malay party, they were probably selected based on their  position and acceptability to the top leadership. Most of them are men.

The result is the same as in England: there are far fewer women MPs and far fewer young candidates who can become MPs or simply be in public service. Women issues have the unfortunate habit of becoming jokes in Parliament and the plight of women is seldom debated seriously. Instead, women’s issues only seem to gain prominence before these political parties hold their annual general meetings.

There are no women religious leaders in this country even though many policies and decisions affecting women are made on religious grounds. Likewise, many policies are made by Muslims MPs who form the majority of our parliamentary representatives, and yet these policies also affect the daily lives of the country’s minority communities. It’s therefore important to recall De Peiro’s  prescription for leaders in Parliament: they must be representative of a country’s people and should be able to relate to and understand the public’s problems. Young people form a big portion of the electorate but how many of our MPs are young, or can be said to truly represent the needs of the young?

Parliament must also be representative of the states in the Federation. We should never gloss over the reality of this country’s diversity. We may ignore this aspect for now but we cannot afford to do so in the long term.

The people of Sabah and Sarawak are generally different from other Malaysians—the particular circumstances of their history and ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds have shaped their political and economic aspirations differently. In this context, it is foolish to think that Putrajaya’s federal power is cast in stone, or to expect Sabahans and Sarawakians to indefinitely tolerate being subjected to decisions and policies that are based on chauvinistic definitions of what it means to be Malaysian, Bumiputera, Muslim, Christian, etc, especially ones that are divorced from their own daily realities.

Even Umno’s hold in Sabah does not necessarily mean the state and its people will always be subservient to Putrajaya. In practical terms, our Parliament must have enough members from Sabah and Sarawak who are independent-minded and unafraid  to articulate the real needs and aspirations of Malaysians from these two states. Only then can we have a good balance between the socioeconomic needs of the people there and the cohesiveness of the country as a whole.

As such we need more MPs from Sabah and Sarawak who can present informed arguments in Parliament, as well as more women and younger MPs  who can do the same. But it’s not enough anymore to be articulate, to be able to write well, or to be able to use words like “progressive” and “inclusiveness”. Talk is cheap. Representing the people’s interests mean being prepared to stand up and take action on issues that affect the rakyat’s general wellbeing.

We must also craft a formula which can consider the needs of the national community as well as the special interest groups that it contains. This must be the deciding factor the next time both the Barisan Nasional and the Opposition think about how to allocate seats to their candidates in the next General Election. Political horsetrading and the often petty turf wars among warlords from both sides of the political divide may have become entrenched over the years, but it’s time we faced the fact that they are allowed to happen at the expense of the public interest.

Fielding wakil rakyat who can truly represent the people’s interest is something we can only aspire to, even when realistically we know that this ideal is seldom reached. A nation that wants to be great, however, has no alternative but to continue looking for the best leaders. One way to achive this is to implement a truly democratic selection of candidates, although this is largely frowned upon in our political system. Candidates are still generally selected by the “top leadership”, even though—willfully or otherwise—they rarely seem to know what the people want from their wakil rakyat. In our system, however, the top always knows best.

Perhaps one of the major political parties can get the ball rolling by dispensing with this system when it’s time to select candidates for the next General Election. Let them select their candidates in an open and transparent process, with the involvement of the local members who have a first-hand view of the grassroots issues affect each constituency. This is worth trying. It could not possibly result in us having MPs of even poorer quality than we do now. With some luck, we might also have more women and younger MPs in the process. – November 11, 2013.

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