THE POLITICS OF OPPOSITION PARTIES IN MALAYSIA

The virtual world is flooded with comments scrutinizing the ruling government’s policies to minute details and exposing scandals of its leader by farcically exaggerating its weight. However, finding studies concerning the political strategy of the opposition parties is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The impetus of this article stems from this lack of information to trumpet the story on the politics of opposition.

Opposition party leaders often appeal to their supporter by showing their devotion to people, their commitment to the nation’s interest and a strong sense of mission and responsibility. On the contrary, beneath their mantle of charms lies the opportunistic beast, hibernating only to wake up to the wrong season by mistrust, egocentrism, and manipulativeness. They will even oppose efficient policy just to inflict reputational damage to the ruling party and will resort to reputation bashing by engaging in sabotage and negative comments forcing the ruling government to participate in an unpleasant conversation. Their ulterior motive is to increase the chances of winning the next election evidence by even a cursory examination of their behavior. In short, opposition parties are like sharks circling for traces of blood.

To exemplify the exact rendition of opposition party’s intended meaning when they oppose the ruling government’s policy, consider your work environment. You and your colleague are constantly battling over whose idea your organization should implement. A successful project raises the inventor’s chance of promotion, but a failed project ruins the inventor’s career. The winner will rise majestically on the totem pole.

How do the opposition parties in Malaysia play the game?

The first thing the opposition party will do is to disregard the ruling government’s viewpoints. The opposition party will not condensed or even acknowledge the idea. In fact, they believe that the very act of acknowledging it would give the ruling government recognition that it does not deserve. Lets look at an example how they do this to obscure you from the truth even more.

When the Prime Minister revealed the government’s budget 2012, the opposition parties quickly labeled it as an “Election’s budget” to draw support in the upcoming election. They asserted that the 2012 budget was people friendly and in an attempt to discredit it, Anwar Ibrahim produces his own national budget. However, a close examination of his version of national budget had the stamped of the orthodox International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescriptions for Malaysia when he was the finance minister during the 1997-98 Asian financial crises prior to his disgraceful sacking. Those bitter pills include pushing interest rates sky high, tightening bank lending, raising import duties and sharply cutting back on public infrastructure spending, thus putting sharp brakes on the economy. This is a clear vindication that opposition parties in Malaysia will not support government policy it believes is most likely to succeed.

The second thing the opposition party will do is to marginalize the ruling government’s opinion by characterizing it outrages. This is best exemplified in government’s approval for defense spending. If you read blogs published by opposition leaders regarding Malaysia’s defense spending you will notice a common theme echoing. The all-famous themes you hear resonating are it is wasteful and corrupted. The famous story is the purchase of 257 of 8x8 Armored Fighting Vehicle at the cost of RM7.55 billion. How did the opposition put a spin to this story to make a good plan outrages? Before explaining the method they use to spin this story, I would like to offer the reader a glimpse of defense budgeting so that you can be your own judge on what is the best way to cut the Gordian knot. It will be dry but informational.

Malaysian must understand that government spends money on its armed forces with the intent to guarantee the country’s security, more importantly its citizen against certain spectrum of risk and threats. What is vital, however are not the armed forces per se, but the capabilities they provide for the implementation of the country’s security policy. More capability means an increased ability to deter threat or to inflict damage to others who then must counter that increased ability with increases of their own. The challenge for defense planners in Ministry of Defense is the ability to answer crucial questions such as WHAT IS THE THREAT? HOW HAS IT CHANGED FROM LAST YEAR? GIVEN THIS CHANGE HOW DO WE NEED TO CHANGE FORCE STRUCTURE AND HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST? Other government departments do not have quite the same burden of reading the future and interpreting the past that Ministry of Defense annually faces in the budget process.

WHY DEFENSE ACQUISITION ALWAYS RUNS INTO THE FIGURE OF BILLION?

High technology weapon development programs are very costly due to their high R&D and infrastructure costs associated with the program. This situation is not likely to change any time in the near future. As matter of fact the only thing constant is the increase of weapon cost by 10% every year and it is expected to double every 7 years. The politics of defense equipment manufacturing is also a major contributing factor to the raising cost. The higher the cost the less countries in third world region would be able to afford it. Hence, ensuring western power to remain dominant by maintaining technology edge on the battlefield.

When the government approved funding for the purchase of 257 Armored Fighting vehicles at the cost of RM7.55 billion, opposition party member Tony Pua saw this as an opportunity to slender the government. He began to parrot to the public that the amount is exorbitant and began to pressure Minister of Defense to explain the cost. He felt proud by being able to quote the exact price of similar vehicle and made allegations that we had overpaid for our vehicles. What he did not tell you was the price he supplied was based on the basic vehicle without weapon platform, battlefield management system, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear capability (CBRN), state of the art communication systems and various other subsystem necessary for the vehicle to be fit for military operations. It is foolish to compare what other countries paid for their vehicle as every military in the world has its own capability model.

The third thing the opposition party will do is attack the factual basis of the government’s position. This is to further strengthen their views on the issues that seem outrageous and to appeal your support to get them elected. Their underlying strategy is to contend with the ruling government by asserting facts that they can manipulate. This is best exemplified in the issue regarding governments plan to build Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). Again all the opposition did was to highlight the cost of the project by misleading you with wrong information.  As the old saw says, “To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” How did he manipulate this?

Tony Pua mentioned on his blog that the US only has two of the LCS but Malaysia is spending your money to buy six. Of course when we view this statement superficially it becomes outrageous but further examination would proof it other wise. The US does own two but they are seven more of those ships that are currently in production with an average cost of RM1.7 billion per ship. The plan does not stop there, as the US plans to have 55 of those ships with production plan running up to 2030. What Tony fails to mention to you was why did the government decide to build these ships. Of course, why should he, it would only proof the government’s decision to be wise and it is the exact opposite of what he is seeking. He neglected to mention the positive economic impact the shipbuilding project will have on the local in particular and the country in general.

The fourth thing the opposition party will do is attack the personality of government leader. I would like to caution you when this attack is launched because it is designed to accomplish one thing: to divert your attention away from the crux of an issue. While these attacks may begin somewhat diplomatically, they quickly descend into rank name-calling, casting aspersion on the person’s character and integrity. A good example of this is when Tony Pua published an article on his blog stating Defense Minister, Dato’ Seri Zahid Hamidi is unfit to be a minister. This is his exact comment “…we have a clueless defence minister who is arrogant, forgetful, ill-informed and ignorant.” Mind you, opposition often employs this tactics when someone’s viewpoint gains traction with the people.

Another claimed he made was, “It is extremely worrying that the country’s Defence Minister is relying the country’s intelligence from a blogger who is an obsessive liar without any morals and ethics. In fact all Malaysians should be terribly concerned that our Defence Minister who wields great powers, can be so gullibly compromised by a writer of unbelievable and outlandish fiction.” This statement was in response made by Zahid on information he received that Tony is a foreign agent. Any Tom, Dick and Harry would know that a Defense Minister receives his daily intelligence briefing from Military Intelligence Department not from a blogger. What he is doing here is to discredit comments made by Zahid about him by associating Zahid with unreliable source. At the very basic, you and I must understand the difference between information and evidence. It clear to me all Tony had provided on his blogs are just information which has a bunch of flavors but no substantial core. 

The question now is who are we to trust? So far, all of the information supplied by Tony Pua has been manipulated to obscure you and I from reality. Tony’s statements are just his perception which models reality, a myth, which comforts society and his stories, is nothing more than a flight of fancy. I know everybody needs some kind of fantasy to go on living, but Tony, keep this one in the privacy of your own thought. I find it remarkable how hard it is for Tony Pua to make the connection between truth and trust, even though they are the foundations of our most important relationships, like friendship and marriage. Henry Clay once said, “Government is a trust…” when those politicians repeated tell the public what the public can plainly see isn’t true, the trust is broken. Tony Pua and his DAP can’t seem to grasp that connection; I sure hope you do!

To conclude, we should ponder on the writing of Alexander Hamilton “Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.” This is the exact description of Malaysia’s opposition party especially Tony Pua which has biases and arises not only from personal failing but also from rational calculus of his vote seeking oppositional politics. This is the reason we should not rely on the opposition to guard against errors made by government instead we have to rely on change of personnel to correct the policy. MALAYSIAN THAT FOLLOWED THE LAST UMNO GENERAL ASSEMBLY BEARS WITNESS TO THE STATEMENT MADE BY PRIME MINISTER THAT CHANGE OF PERSONNEL IS EXACTLY HIS NEXT Course OF ACTION.