To understand Malaysia, one must understand its leaders. Recently, Tun Dr. Mahathir has set up his own blog, and I found this except particularly significant because I think it gives a lot of insight into the thought processes that have shaped Malaysia in his administration.
“Politically, the opposition is the enemy. Being forced to work with the opposition is not undemocratic but it shows up the weakness of the Government.
A weak government is not good for multi-racial Malaysia. It leads to unwarranted challenges against its authority. Governments cannot please everybody. If a Government cannot be firm and is forced to flip-flop there will be a lack of confidence which does not augur well for the smooth implementation of policies or project…
A Government with little need for opposition support would be better able to disregard the sniping that all Governments must face. It should however take note of opposition views and respond where necessary.
In today’s context, the Federal Government is unable to initiate necessary changes to the constitution and would be held to ransom every time.” — Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, May 02, 2008 (http://www.chedet.com/2008/05/weak-government-is-not-good-for-multi.html).
Clearly, Dr. Mahathir is quite conservative. Saying that he favours a strong government is an understatement, and if anything Abdullah’s quote, “Aku pantang dicabar” (I will not stand challenges to my authority) seems to be a closer fit to describing Mahathir’s philosophy than Abdullah’s. It really boils down to a defence of authoritarianism.
How is working with “the enemy” an indication of government weakness? What does he define as a “weak” government? His argument basically consists of the inability to change the constitution and set policy as the opposition would “snipe” and make “unwarranted challenges” to government efforts. Nevertheless, the government somehow can take into consideration the oppposition, but obviously at its own leisure.
So the next question is, what are the political mechanisms for a government to be able to be effective? I believe that there is a cultural argument for this. Students of political science may have encountered the notion that the “Asian way” of organization is based on networks of affiliation and hierarchical patronage which permeate the previous government. Thus to lose key leaders in government would mean that a entire branch of people in the bureaucracy would have been cut off from performing their jobs.
Is there good reason for political “sniping” to reduce the efficacy of government? Let me postulate a reason which suggests the answer, “no”. If Barisan Nasional and the government has a centralised method for framing an agenda, pursuing legitimate reasons for policy and coordinating the actions of its members, then its will have greatly bolstered its policymaking capability. It doesn’t have a BN-centric “epistemic community” — a network of personnel largely dedicated to framing issues and giving BN the intellectual and moral high ground, i.e. “the confidence that it needs”. Again, it boils down to network politics.
If anything, “political sniping” disrupts policymaking because BN doesn’t have the internal institutional support as a bulwark against it, and probably has relied on government infrastructure to give that support that it no longer has control of.
In conclusion, it is in my opinion that Mahathir’s opinions are largely predicated on political realities — but realities which are weaknesses and flaws in BN’s institutional capabilities. He says the government needs to be strong through less opposition, but that necessity stems from the fact that BN has little capability to withstand opposition at all.
If BN wants to continue to stay in government, the answer will at least partially lie in reforms to become institutionally more capable of organization outside of government. I’m not sure if the resignation of Abdullah Badawi achieves that, and I am more inclined to think that it will just rearrange the networks of patronage within BN rather than giving the institutional support that it needs.
On a side note, I really have to re-read Zakaria’s Illiberal Democracy.
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