MAY 29 — While it’s great Malaysians are waking up to the notion of political process, the clamouring voices are starting to get on my nerves.
Our ministers have barely taken up their portfolios and the voices are shouting “Where are the quarterly reports? Why isn’t A/B/C being funded/dissolved? Who’s advocating for this demographic?”
Calm yourselves, Malaysians. Can we just stick to the original Pakatan Harapan laundry list of promises first?
It might seem like forever ago but our election happened just May 9. Let our ministers gain their bearings, learn the workings of bureaucracy and fully embrace their roles.
For most of the Cabinet, it’s their first time being part of the federal government machinery and if some of them want to exercise a bit of caution, why not? Better than making announcements for endeavours that can’t be fulfilled (I’m looking at your World Cup ambitions, Gobind Singh Deo).
Like it or not, many of you activists will have to get in line. I’m not belittling your causes — they all matter. They are all important. But in the bigger scheme of things, not urgent when compared to that big scary mess that is our finances.
Our finances should be the number one priority — figuring out just how much money we actually have and just how much was promised and spent — and until that is sorted out, a lot of initiatives will need to go on the backburner.
While there has been some progress on those lofty promises, many things will take time to truly pan out. You can’t fix the economy overnight — we’re not Singapore, that can afford to make employers raise wages overnight and not collapse in the aftermath.
We forget how much Malaysia really is a damn miracle — how we have managed to juggle various races, religions and political viewpoints without (much) bloodshed. How riots are rare, almost unheard of to the point where tales of them seem more like stories we tell our children of imaginary bogeymen.
The whole world witnessed a bloodless, calm transition of power though our former prime minister was utterly graceless about it. Other countries would have treated a former leader suspected of massive embezzlement far less kindly but our ex-PM is under fairly comfortable house arrest, still allowed to have visitors as well as attend mass prayers. He is afforded a dignity many ex-premiers would envy.
Things are fragile at the moment; it hasn’t even been a month and while that giddy anticipation still lingers, it will be easy to forget just how hard it was to get this far. Malaysians had been so long resigned to being dictated to, to being treated like subjects instead of citizens.
We fought to get to where we are — we will have to fight to keep this new status quo. Yes, the fighting never really ends but sometimes, it’s worth it. The stakes are far too high to not be vigilant so let’s remain cautious, stay observant and give the government what it needs the most right now: Time.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
