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No News Is Bad News
Malaysia plagued by mediocre leaders
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 20, 2024: Mediocre political leaders, if not plain incompetent politicians who hold public office, is Malaysia’s curse.
Who is to blame for the current leadership woes that is unable to perform effectively and deliver what is expected of the public.
The voters? The party that picks them to be election candidates? Or the party leaders responsible for appointing them?
In Penang, more than half of the 11 state executive councillors are said to be unable to converse/speak English fluently.
Also, except for incumbent Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow and his second deputy, the rest of the exco mebers are first-term appointees.
They just don’t have the command of the English language and, therefore, lack confidence when meeting foreign officials and dignitaries.
This is a story that is circulating in Penang: One of the state exco members was reported to have attended the Adelaide-George Town 50th Anniversary Sister City Celebration recently.
He was said to have skipped the dinner, apparently fearing to have to deliver a speech in English.
The next day, the Adelaide mayor met him at a meeting and politely asked him: “Where were you? We missed you last night.”
The exco responded: “I in room drink wine.”
Given Malaysia’s substandard education quality, are you surprised?
The Penang state exco line-up:
Name | Portfolio | Party | Constituency | Term start | Term end |
· Finance · Economic Development · Land · Communications | 13 August 2023 | Incumbent | |||
· Islamic Development · Education · National Unity | PH (PKR) | 16 August 2023 | |||
· Human Capital Development · Science and Technology | PH (DAP) | ||||
· Tourism · Creative Economy | |||||
· Infrastructure · Transport · Digital Development | |||||
· Social Development · Welfare · Non-Islamic Religious Affairs | |||||
· Youth · Sports · Health | |||||
· Local Government · Town & Country Planning | |||||
· Housing · Environment | |||||
· Agrotechnology & Food Security · Cooperative Development | PH (PKR) | ||||
· Trade and Entrepreneurial Development · Rural Development |
Ex officio members[edit]
The State Secretary, the State Legal Adviser and the State Financial Officer are the ex officio members of the Executive Council.
Name | Position | Note |
Abdul Razak Bin Jaafar | State Secretary | |
Norazmi Bin Mohd Narawi | State Legal Adviser | |
Mohd Farazi Bin Johari | State Financial Officer |
Former membership[edit]
Chow Kon Yeow I EXCO[edit]
PH (11) |
· DAP (8) · PKR (3) |
To Penangites, isn’t that scary for their and state’s future?
No News Is Bad News reproduces below an article titled “Malaysia’s Curse: Plague of Mediocre Political Leaders”:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43985834
Malaysia's Curse: Plague of Mediocre Political Leaders
Sukudhew (Sukhdave) Singh
Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Malaysia | Former Independent Director, Khazanah Nasional Berhad
Published May 10, 2022
Malaysia is a blessed country in so many ways compared to many other developing countries. However, we suffer from the curse of bad leadership, which has held us back. Since independence, Malaysia has been led (with a couple of exceptions) by selfish, arrogant and divisive leaders. Instead of uniting us and broadening our horizons to the potential of us working together to build this nation, they have sought to divide us by narrowing our focus to communal issues. Why? Because they prioritised their own self-interest over the interest of the nation.
Most of our problems are self-created. We are today less than what we could have been primarily because of bad leadership. Malaysians are not naturally divisive. We weren’t until bad leaders made it so. GE-14 showed that Malaysians can come together if united behind a common purpose. The question for us is whether our leaders want us to be united.
Leadership is even more important to the economic and social progress of countries than their natural resource endowments. Countries that have good political leadership and governance can achieve high levels of development even if they do not have a lot of resources. In this region, that would include countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore. The ability to unite a nation behind a vision is the hallmark of good leaders, and conversely, the failure to provide such a vision and a having a disunited nation is the calling card of bad leaders.
In Malaysia, a race-based political system that is largely devoid of meritocratic considerations provides rich opportunities for individuals with the worst character defects to assume leadership positions. Is it any wonder then that the political leadership of the country has progressively been on a downward spiral with successive leaders being worse than their predecessors? How can it be anything else when the core skills required are a high degree of proficiency in exploiting communal feelings, political skulduggery and playing taxpayer-funded money politics? The last 20 years have been among the most economically challenging for the country and yet it has also been the period during which the greatest deterioration in national leadership has occurred.
Here are some of the negative consequences to the country due to bad leadership:
1. Without good leadership, the country has lost its vision of what it wants to be and how it wants to get there. There is a palpable lack of economic direction. The five-year plans are dutifully produced but they no longer seem to have a significant impact on the transformation of the economy. These plans, and numerous others, essentially put the country on a rocking horse – there is an apparent sense of movement but the country is not going anywhere.
2. Our political leadership is very fond of coming up with slogans and lapel pins that are introduced with great fanfare and appear to provide some vision of a united and progressive Malaysia. But that is about as far as it goes. Just lapel pins. There is no serious attempt to implement policies to make that vision a reality. In fact, the actions of our leaders often contradict their own slogans. It is just politics.
3. Good leadership goes with healthy governance. Why is it that when we have the necessary laws and institutions to ensure a healthy level of governance in the country, we still have corruption eating into the very fabric of our society like a colony of termites? Why is it that while ministers are busily awarding government contracts to their families and relatives, school teachers are being asked to make integrity pledges? This implies that our leaders think that integrity is fine as long as it does not apply to them. Clearly, a class of our society considers itself to be above the laws of the land. A feudal power structure and politicians anxious to make the most financial gains while still in office, creates a strong incentive among our leaders to not want any checks and balances imposed on their powers. Hence, the institutions of governance lack political independence and are subject to political interference on many levels. In effect, our institutions of governance are themselves in need of good governance. In this country, the separation of powers between legislature, the executive and the judiciary is accepted in concept but not in practice. The institutions of the state serve not the public but the elites and the politically connected and are at their beck and call.
4. Mediocre political leaders want a mediocre unquestioning electorate, not an intelligent questioning one. On the other hand, the economy needs intelligent workers who can not only ask good questions but can also find good answers. This dichotomy between what politics wants and what the economy needs is being played out in the national education system, and politics has won. The national education system is a mess, and if anything, the problem has festered and gotten worse over time. Intellectual mediocrity has become the hallmark of much of our national education system. This has been one of the biggest failures of our muddled leaders; they have intentionally neglected to develop the most important economic resource: our people. By contrast, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have established world leading education systems to ensure that their population receives the best of education.
5. With institutionalised discrimination, meritocracy is usually not a criterion in the selection of leaders for the huge civil service and the multitude of government and politically-linked economic organisations. Leaders are chosen not because of the strength of their character and leadership abilities but rather for their political connections, sycophancy, ethnicity, religion, and the weight of their titles. Is it any wonder then that instances of financial mismanagement and outright fraud in government agencies and government-linked companies have regularly resulted in a large drain of tax-payers money?
6. Our leaders continue to harp on inter-ethnic differences in wealth even though these have narrowed substantially. They do not like to talk about the fact that intra-ethic wealth gaps have widened substantially. The reason for this dichotomy is that emphasizing inter-ethnic differences supports their narrative for preferential treatment and their exorbitant privilege and power. On the other hand, talking about intra-ethnic gaps will incriminate them and only serve to highlight their own greed and incompetence, especially given that the wealth gap is largest among the Malays. Therefore, rather than addressing inequality wherever it exists in Malaysia, our leaders prefer to keep the public's focus on inter-ethic inequality because it serves their own selfish interest.
7. There is a huge component of the economy, which includes many of the country’s elites, that exists solely for the purpose of rent-seeking and performs no meaningful economic activity. Many rely on licenses and other forms of privileged access to undertake numerous economic activities. These creates a distorted economic environment, with many businesses surviving mainly on the basis of privilege, rather than because they are competitive. It stifles competition and hurts productivity. Consumers face higher prices. Fear of the land-grabbing nature of race-based government policies has led to the precautionary outflow of significant amounts of private wealth to other countries. Add to that the stashing of ill-gotten gains abroad, and you will begin to understand a key drag on the economy, the balance of payments and the exchange rate. Transformation of the economy has slowed, and the amount of low-skilled foreign labour, often illegal, in the country keeps growing to the point that it has become a key factor in our economic activity and economic competitiveness. Skilled talent is becoming increasingly hard to find and is much sought after. These and other developments are undermining the often-repeated objective of modernising the economy.
8. Our environment is being wrecked with forest reserves being illegally logged because the elites have cowed those who are supposed to be safeguarding them for the nation. Our public parks and green areas are at perpetual risk from corrupt city officials conniving with politically affiliated developers. The consequent over-building without proper attention to supporting infrastructure is a key reason why cities like Kuala Lumpur suffer from congestion and are now subject to frequent flooding. And such flooding will continue to get worse as mindless urban development comes face-to-face with climate change.
9. There has been a long-term failure of fiscal policy to optimise government expenditures towards supporting investments in areas that increase the future growth potential of the Malaysian economy. There is a significant element of waste and leakage in Government expenditure and it is often used to achieve political ends rather than economic ones. It remains to be seen whether the current government will make good use of the healthy revenue flows from the strong commodity prices the country is currently enjoying, or as in the past, it would become another missed opportunity for good fiscal governance.
The point here is that prolonged bad leadership has real negative consequences for us as individuals and for us as a nation. A leadership that is not aligned to the welfare of the citizens of the country will extract a heavy toll. For those who look at the gleaming glass towers of Kuala Lumpur and say that a crisis (as in Sri Lanka) cannot happen here, I say that it is unjustified arrogance. Continue electing bad leaders, and it is only a matter of time before the burden of economic mismanagement and financial plundering ruins the economy. Bad leaders have a tendency to push problems under the carpet, that is, until they can be pushed under no further. Our decrepit national education system, stretched public finances and abysmal governance are all creating such problems that are beginning to stack up and are having a growing negative impact on the economy. When it comes to corruption and erosion of governance, recall that a single civil servant was able to intimidate and silence our entire political structure, from title-givers to title recipients, from ruling parties to opposition parties. Few dared to side with a lone activist. It just went to show how totally rotten and wretchedly corrupt our entire political system and power structure is. If we do not change our nation for the better, it will change us for the worse.
So, what can we do about it? Here are a few things that I believe will help to push us in the right direction:
First, our nation is only as good as its leaders. Therefore, we must move away from the communal politics that allow men of questionable character to assume political leadership roles. To continue selecting bad leaders and expecting better social and economic outcomes is a fool's dream. If you are not convinced, then the next time you are sitting in your stalled car in heavy traffic with rapidly rising flood waters, I suggest you give some thought to the role of your ethnic leaders in your predicament.
Second, we must ignore the rancid politics of racist and corrupt old men. They created our problems and they are bankrupt of ideas or motivation to find solutions. We need a new crop of energetic and intelligent young leaders who can drive social and economic change in Malaysia and make it a proud nation. Will such young men and women come to the service of our nation – not to become ‘Yang Berhormats’ but to serve the people? If they do, we should give such leaders our vote and hope that they have sufficient integrity to be less vulnerable to the corrosive influence of power than those of their fathers' generation.
Third, we must reform the non-democratic, non-meritocratic structure of leadership at both the state and federal level which has become a serious obstacle towards economic progress because vested interest always takes precedence over national interest. Wherever feasible, credible democratic processes should be introduced in the selection of leaders in public institutions. Where such democratic processes are not possible, we should consider limits on the powers of unelected leaders at all levels through appropriate changes in governance. Only then will the interest of these institutions be aligned with that of the public.
Fourth, we have to strengthen the political independence and governance of our regulatory and enforcement agencies, and introduce careful vetting in the selection of their leaders. We also need to re-establish the separation of powers between the different branches of government to strengthen the system of checks and balances.
Fifth, we must remove institutionalised discrimination, in all its forms, from the face of this nation. Institutionalised discrimination is the excuse behind which hides many of our social and economic evils. It provides a fertile ground for mediocrity and corruption to flourish. In my view, the removal of institutionalised discrimination is absolutely essential if we are to move forward as a nation. An anti-discrimination law would be a good start in setting the country on the right path.
To Conclude
When I was appointed deputy governor at the Central Bank, the immediate feedback I got soon after was that many in the Chinese community were asking why a Chinese deputy governor was not chosen instead. We have gotten so used to looking at issues and judging people through ethnic lenses that it is has become part of our national culture. And that is the crux of the matter. If we want Malaysia to become a progressive and developed country that offers plenty of opportunities for all our children to reach their full potential, then we have to start by removing those ethnic lenses when it comes to selecting our leaders. Not a Malay leader. Not a Chinese leader. Not an Indian leader. But a Malaysian leader who will work for all Malaysians. We have to start looking at the character of our leaders and their leadership track record rather than their ethnicity or religion. We cannot continue to elect short-sighted, selfish and mediocre leaders and expect the Malaysian economy to become a top performer. It has to start with first electing a top performing leadership for the country. And for God's sake, let's give meritocracy and multi-racialism a real chance; we have nothing to lose but the shackles of mediocrity that has so far held us back.
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