Unity government... is a pie in the sky

The term ‘unity government’ in Malaysia conjures a ruling government formed from a coalition of both ruling coalition of political parties and its opposition coalition.

My immediate reaction was, ‘of course, now that BN is weaker, they are thinking of ways to maintain their status quo and control’.

What came to my mind was that years ago, then opposition Gerakan, soon after its Penang state victory, joined BN to be part of the federal government. Following that, Sabah was destabilised before PBS was willing to join the ruling coalition. History has shown that any party joining BN would end up being stifled, controlled, bullied and rendered beyond recognition, until they eventually lost their voters’ support.

I view MCA and MIC’s days within BN as numbered – either they have to leave voluntarily or stay on and be wiped out in the next general elections. I am surprised at PPP’s continued stay within, despite being humiliated by their anchor party.

At a recent forum in Subang Jaya, Ms. Tricia Yeoh pointed out the last part in DPM’s recent speech on the Rm60 billion stimulus package, something to the effect, ‘let’s put aside our differences and cooperate…’ She seemed to find it incredulous because events have shown that the federal government had been sidelining opposition-held states time and again. Personally, I could think of Tourism ministry, Transport ministry, Education ministry and all those development funds being controlled by federal people instead of the ruling state governments. Then, there was the secret meeting among government agencies (including the so-called independent Election Commission) to find ways to topple Selangor state government! Can we still trust BN to form a unity government?

The following letter in Malaysiakini seems idealistic, knowing our actual political situation, but there is no harm in thinking out of the box, even if it is just for interest sake.

Unity gov't will restore confidence in public agencies
(excerpts):
Timmy Say Mar 24, 09 4:22pm

In Parliament, all MPs are not being addressed by their own name. Instead, they are all addressed as their constituency’s name. I believe there are reasons for that:

1. A constituency doesn't change its name, but its MP always changes over the years.
2. It is To remind the MPs that they are representing their constituency and not their coalition or party.

Sadly, after getting our votes to be a MP in Parliament, most MPs forget that they are representing the people of the constituency as their voice in Parliament. Once in Parliament, they never remember themselves as a wakil rakyat but more as a wakil party as RPK rightly put it in one of his recent articles.

If there are at least 112 MPs who really act behalf of the rakyat instead of their party or coalition in Parliament to voice out the rakyat's wish to support a new prime minister and to break the tradition of accepting blindly the incoming Umno president as the PM, then I believe a unity government will be born automatically.

This will result in the Parliament splitting into two sides - MPs who represent the rakyat through the ruling coalition and the MPs who still think they represent their party as in the opposition coalition.

In terms of viewing it from political parties, this unity government, of course, will be a mixture of those from all the different political parties, Umno, MCA, MIC, PAS, DAP, PKR, SAPP, PPP (and so on). This unity government will be beyond what the spin doctors of the mainstream media are trying to push - a unity government created between PAS and Umno.

Currently, the leaders of our country are doing everything possible to remain in the corridors of power. Everything has been compromised since - the police, the MACC, the judiciary and even the constitution; all to show that they are indeed in power and will remain so by hook or by crook.

The worst thing of all is that public perception towards these supposedly independent institutions such as the MACC, judiciary, police, the civil service and the Election Commission has shifted so dramatically that it is now at the level of ‘none of them can be trusted anymore’.

With these five important institutions suffering from a bad public perception and being unable to function properly, the country automatically can be classified as ‘very ill’. In short, we can just say that our country has stopped working.