COMMENTARY, Aug 31— The word 2020, or Wawasan 2020, was coined by the likes of the late Tan Sri Nordin Sopiee, and Allahyarham Rustam Sani.
The former has a PhD from LSE in political science, while the latter the same, but from Yale University. Both were top brains that Malaysia lost too early.
They coined Wawasan 2020, in 1990, with one vision in mind: to give Malaysia a perfect vision forward. Regardless of which partisan divide, all Malaysians embraced it. Be it MCA or DAP, there was nary a dissent against such a view; as articulated by then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad in the Malaysian Business Council.
Among the list of goals was a GDP growth of 7.5 per cent each year to double the size of the Malaysian GDP every decade. At US$300 billion, Malaysia did not double in size every decade between 1990 and 2000, let alone, triple in size by 2020 next year, which is why Wawasan 2020 or Vision 2020 has to be pushed back to 2025; no thanks to the kleptocracy of former prime minister Najib Razak that has had Malaysia hammered to the wall of debt that has crossed the ceiling of US$290 billion and still growing.
Regardless of the “tsunami” that wrested the power from the hands of Umno and Barisan National (BN), the grip of the old government was strong.
It needed policy-preneurs and strategists across all parties that formed Pakatan Harapan (PH), and more importantly, deep connections to civil society organisations, even overseas Malaysians who have never renounced their ties and sentiments to Malaysia, be they in Hong Kong, Hanoi, or, Hannover.
Take footballer Lim Tiong Kim. He could have made his bread, forever, in Bayern Munich. But the Melaka-born Lim returned to Malaysia to spearhead the growth of the Malaysian youth football. Why would the likes of Lim return? The word is Malaysia. We feel at home to serve the country well.
When the likes of me anticipate the ground swell feeling against PH, after losing by-elections in Cameron Highlands and Semenyih respectively, we are doing it out of sheer passion for the country to set the country right.
Blockchain technology, for example, is not just crypto currencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, which Bank Negara banned. Block chain technology, which is increasingly favoured in Japan, the land where Malaysia is supposed to Look East, is also gaining in prominence in China and South Korea too.
All exports, be they bird nests or the certificates of education or even Bahasa Malaysia or khat can be block chained and certified by keying in a series of alphabets.
Malaysia is still stuck in the mindset of 4G, when the world has moved to 5G; with caveat whether we want to put all our faith in Huawei or something else.
The point is simple: countries don’t grow unless there are strategists from all shades and background to put their minds together. As a policy strategist of Bersatu, my job, is to provide critical and brutal truth on steering the country forward.
The seven academics who once helped Emir Research, which I founded, to get the electoral analysis in 2018 right, can get the election analysis in 2023, or, sooner right again. Privacy and exclusivity do not allow me to name them individually. But one day, history will rename them as the visionaries too. There are countless other Malaysians who put on their thinking hats that created Bersih I to V to tilt the balance against Umno and PAS too. No one leader did it on his own. It was a team effort since 1998 or 1970, if the focus is on National Economic Policy, even earlier when the late Tun Abdul Rahman, Tan Cheng Lock and Tun Sambanthan went to London to lay the ground of independence. Even Lee Kuan Yew, prior to the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, played a role.
But PH is in trouble, when the leaders do not do three things: ignore the Manifesto of PH conceived by the strategists through laborious constructive engagements with all stakeholders and research; form the Parliamentary Select Committees mapped out by the forward looking thinkers; and do not listen to the Presidential Council of PH; indeed, with some, intentionally absenting themselves from the meetings, either at the PH or Party level.
All strategists according to Carl Von Clauwitz, a German military expert in 19th strategy, will find that their “strategies,” will face what in German is called fritchon or “friction” in English.
One of “frictions” is the difficulties of operationalising the strategies when the top or the middle management does not listen fully. Thus what is a strategy becomes a document that faces enormous resistance even from the word get-go.
Bersatu has that problem, as does DAP. Liew Chin Tong, a top strategist of the party, affirmed clearly that there was a “swing” of 20 per cent of the votes against BN and Umno in 2018.
But he had finally admitted that these votes were not due to the love for PH, but the loathing of the First Couple in the previous administration.
Bersatu is a party that seems to want to move Malaysia forward, on freedom of idea, contestation of ideas, a new Manifesto, and a solid Vision 2025 forward. But it would not be correct to have the top of Bersatu chastising people who are sensing the gloom and doom of PH. When Nouriel Roubini foresaw the Asian financial crisis, from NYU University, he was not dismissed as a quack. When Urjit Patel, the Central Bank Governor of India, was dismissed by PM Naredha Modhi in December 2018, he left quietly.
Professor KS Jomo in Malaysia is also warning of the head winds to be faced by Malaysia. The same goes with Lim Guan Eng, the Minister of Finance, who warned of erosion of support to PH; including Wong Chen, the PKR MP for Subang.
Thus there is constant need for an optical correction by speaking the truth; even if this has to be spoken to the powers that be within the ranks of the government. In all, this is for the good of Malaysia, especially when we are celebrating our Independence Day on August 31.
The fact that many have started asking tough questions on the direction of this nation, is a sign that many are not in favour of the new Malaysia which PH is trying to create. I have delivered a wakeup call that is inchoate in the mind of many. The last thing anyone should do is to shoot down the messenger. Strategists are the early warning predictors. And, if we have got it right before against the grain of all political scientists, we will get it right again; as our methods are numerically and methodologically rigorous.
Happy 62nd Independence Day!
* A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.
