The clash of generations in Teluk Intan

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the 44th St Gallen Symposium, an annual international conference held in a picturesque town in eastern Switzerland, having been selected as a global “Leader of Tomorrow” by the International Students Council of the University of St Gallen.

Over the three-day conference, I met many other young men and women under the age of 35 from all corners of the world, each a leader in their field. From entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to Ivy League scholars to fellow politicians, I relished the opportunity to engage them in workshops, debates and forums.

The presence of so many up-and-coming young leaders certainly proved that capability is not age specific. One impressive example that I came across was Lazar Krstic, a Yale-trained 29-year-old from Serbia who was appointed last year to his country’s Cabinet as Minister of Finance. I thought that surely such an appointment must have been an anomaly rather than the norm, until I was told the current Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs is only 27 years old. Despite being Malaysia’s youngest serving MP at 31, I suddenly felt old.

The theme of this year’s symposium was interestingly entitled “The Clash of Generations”. This is an issue that is quickly gaining relevance in Europe, a continent with a disproportionately large aging population. As a result, fissures have emerged, such as the prospect of rising healthcare costs and unsustainable pensions growth.

In Malaysia, we face an inter-generational divide as well, though the problem is not quite the same. With more than 70% of the population below the age of 40, the increasing number of Malaysians entering the workforce in the next few decades will be enough to sustain the pension payments of the older and smaller demographic of retirees.

Nevertheless, the situation in Malaysia produces a different set of issues. For example, the need to balance population growth with social mobility will require the creation of not only more jobs, but higher-paying ones. This will require our education system to keep up in terms of staying relevant to industry needs. Besides creating better opportunities, we also need to ensure the vibrancy of our workforce, and that requires us to keep our brightest young minds from leaving our country in search of greener pastures elsewhere (especially across the causeway).

Between new politics and old politics

In Malaysia, the “clash of generations” is not only manifested in the socio-economic sphere, but also the political one. In fact, I have experienced it first-hand as the deputy campaign director of DAP’s Teluk Intan by-election campaign these last two weeks.

In this case, the clash is not simply due to the age gap between our young lawyer, Dyana Sofya, and the seasoned president of Gerakan, Dato Mah Siew Keong. Instead, it is between what they each represent – between new politics and old politics.

The stark differences between the two dynamics have unfolded very clearly throughout the campaign. Take for example statements made by senior BN leaders such as Defence Minister Dato Seri Zahid Hamidi, who smugly remarked that Dyana was “… not as pretty in person as in pictures and on television”.

Far from being an isolated lapse of judgement, such an incredibly crude line of argument, as misogynistic and patronising as it sounds, continued to pepper the headlines during the entire campaign. One by one, BN ministers have trumpeted the same sexist tune.

Minister of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Dato Abdul Rahman Dahlan insinuated that people would vote for Dyana simply because she wears lipstick, while Deputy Finance Minister Dato Ahmad Maslan compared her looks to his wife’s. Capping it off was Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industries, Dato Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, who suggested that it was not wrong to “gawk at her beauty”.

Besides the testosterone-induced need to flex their male egos, there has been nothing to suggest that BN leaders have realised the need to try anything other than the usual formula of character assassination, money politics, intimidation, race mongering and the wanton abuse of government machinery.

And this is in spite of the fact that BN has experienced a steady downtrend in electoral results ever since abandoning their reform agenda post-2004. Instead, it is Pakatan Rakyat that has managed to capture public imagination with policy ideas to improve socio-economic welfare, reform state institutions and fight against corruption.

In contrast to BN, DAP’s Teluk Intan campaign has been all about the new brand of constructive politics for which young Malaysians yearn. To begin with, a fresh, idealistic and educated young candidate is proffered, as opposed to our opponent’s recycled contender. Besides being young and female, she also comes across as the unlikeliest of DAP candidates – Malay, active Umno family and UiTM-trained.

Yet despite being what a fellow columnist recently termed as an “Umno product”, Dyana is everything Umno isn’t. Vowing to “Malaysianise” Malaysia, she has time and again proven that she will steer clear from the old Umno-BN style of politics. Instead, she has chosen to present a parliamentary agenda that encompasses policies concerning cost of living, good governance, youth development and women empowerment – choices made after fusing empirical data from local surveys with her own policy interests.

The contrast between the two political paradigms is not surprising, given the vastly different historical experiences that divide the two generations in question. In this context, I have always suggested that a Malaysian dichotomy exists between those above and below the age of 40.

Malaysians above the age of 40 lived through a tumultuous post-war period that included the Emergency, the struggle for independence, the merger, the split and the traumatic racial riots of May 13, 1969. For those of us born after, these historical incidences do not quite shape our world-view the same way it has shaped our parents’. Instead, our experience has been shaped by 22 years of Mahathirism, Reformasi and the Bersih rallies.

This is why every general election in this country since our generation came of age as voters has seen the reform platform gaining ground, beginning with the 2004 general election when Pak Lah was elected as prime minister with an unprecedented majority on the promise to breathe fresh air into a political landscape dominated by one man for the last two decades.

Meanwhile, whatever reforms that were promised first by Pak Lah and then by his successor Najib have fizzled out as corruption, cronyism and state monopoly capitalism continue to plague the country’s economy, while the right-wing agenda has become politically dominant.

As such, it is all the more vital that Dyana Sofya wins the Teluk Intan by-election. A victory for Dyana would not only send her to Parliament, but also signal the victory of new ideas and constructive politics over BN’s outdated and arrogant politics premised upon race, religion and the total abuse of power.

And so, after two weeks of intense campaigning, Teluk Intan goes to the polls today. Although I believe we have done all we can, I cannot help but feel nervous and excited at the same time – nervous in the face of the seemingly insurmountable might of the BN machinery, and excited at the prospects that a Pakatan Rakyat victory would bring.

It is therefore my hope that, come this evening, the feisty young lady I recruited three years ago will take over from me as the 13th Malaysian Parliament’s youngest MP, and in so doing possibly also become the catalyst for much-needed change in Malaysian politics. – May 31, 2014.