MY PROPOSAL TO IMPROVE REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY IN MALAYSIA

I was honoured to have been invited to be a speaker at the recently concluded OHMSI Perdana Forum. I was asked to address how we could improve Representative Democracy in Malaysia. If you didn't get to attend and participate in that Forum, I summarise below what I said. Instead of continuously hyper-venting, let's all do something, to at least try and change the dastardly maligned parliamentary system we presently have.

I could have mentioned a hundred issues, in a long wish list of ways, to improve representative democracy, in Malaysia.

For example:

I could have suggested undoing the racially biased distortions, that 60 years of Gerrymandering, by the BN government, had wreaked upon electoral constituencies.

I could have suggested Dismantling the present Party System, where all our elected MPs, have been transformed, into completely, unthinking voting robots, by the Party President, and their Party Whips, to impose the Prime Minister’s often selfish agenda, upon MPs, and through them, upon us.

I could have suggested banning all Party whips, and allow voting by MPs, to be based on conscience, and what his constituency demanded.

I could have suggested banning ALL political Parties, which restrict their membership on Race or Religion.

I could have suggested simplifying voting rights, by removing voter pre-registrations, and automatically giving all citizens above 18, the right to vote, by using only their identity cards, as proof of eligibility.

Although all the above might have been interesting, it would be an exercise in futility, as nothing will be done by anybody, to implement my suggestions.

Instead, I chose to focus on just one simple Action Point, that can be implemented by all Malaysians, right now, to force the Member of Parliament or State Assemblyman you voted into Parliament, to start Representing only YOU, and your constituency. Effectively, you and your fellow voters in your constituency, become your MP's party.

I suggested the following simple steps, to make your MP/ADUN directly accountable to YOU, and the people in your constituency, and NOT to his Party:

a) Go to the Election Office. Get an extract of the election rolls, containing a list of all voters registered in your constituency.

b) Start a Telegram Group (Telegram allows upto 200,000 members), of all your fellow constituents, plus your MP and ADUN (State Assemblyman).

c) Use that Telegram Group to be an interaction Group among voters in your constituency, and make a List of what you want your MP/ADUN, to bring up in Parliament, on your behalf. This becomes his Job Description, and his Targets.

d) Establish Milestones, and Key Performance Indicators, to Measure and Track his performance.

e) Have an online Quarterly Assessment, of your MP’s Report Card, and highlight any unachieved tasks and targets. Within the Telegram chat group, everyone can have a direct voice to his MP and ADUN.

f) Take your MP/ADUN to task, for what he has NOT done, or where he has failed to bring your voice to parliament.

g) Punish your MP, by telling all members in the Telegram Group, NOT to vote for him, in the next elections, if you detect Dishonesty, Corruption, Low Morality, Low integrity, Low Honour, Selfishness, Ineptness, or Non-Achievement of Targets.

VOLA.

In one fell swoop, you have a simple mechanism for monitoring, and controlling the conduct of your MPs/ADUNs. Using the Telegram group, you can dismantle our ugly party system, which in Malaysia, is mostly based on Race and Religion. You can implement this immediately. No Rocket Science needed. All it needs is a few people to start the Telegram Group in each of the 222 PARLIAMENTARY constituencies in Malaysia.

If the group becomes too large and unwieldly, we can have a tier higher Group, comprising informally elected reps to be part of a higher and smaller group.

Get your MP and ADUN to be in the group.

Get the electoral rolls for your constituency, and persuade every eligible voter in that list to join the Telegram Group. Use the group as a bipartisan forum to champion YOUR issues. In the constituency group chat, you can propose and discuss and debate ideas, concerns, issues, action points that are important to YOU. And you can use the group to control and guide the actions ,and conduct of your constituency’s Member of Parliament and ADUN.

But will you do it?

Probably NOT, because lots of people love to talk only, and will usually not do anything real, to make change happen.

I have started a Telegram Group for the P105 Petaling Jaya Parliamentary constituency. If you are a voter in the P105 Petaling Jaya Constituency, please join our P105 Petaling Jaya Telegram Group by using the link below:

P105 PETALING JAYA VOTERS TELEGRAM GROUP

The P105 Petaling Jaya Telegram Group is intended to be a People's Democracy Club, for ALL voters (irrespective of party affiliations) in the  P.105 Petaling  Parliament Constituency, the N.34 Gasing, the N.33 Taman Medan, and the N.32 Seri Setia , ADUN Constituency.

We want our MP and ADUN to be OUR voices in Parliament, and if all P105 voters are in this Group, we will be a loud enough voice to make our MPs and ADUNs listen to us. Let us restore REAL Parliamentary Democracy in Malaysia.

Yusuf Hashim

12 July 2021