The situation that is happening in Perak simply solidify the reality that I'm looking for - that we need to make crossing over of MP (Ahli Parlimen) / ADUN (Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri) - illegal in this country's democracy.
Here are the reasons:
1. Crossovers making the elected representatives to join the side that may actually against what the people's wish.
2. Because it is potentially against the majority of the people's wish, this is undemocratic
3. Democracy is balancing public accountability and the interest of minority (you can define whatever "democracy" you want, but this is the definition that I settle for).
4. Crossing over could shift the balance that could biased towards majority's interest OR public "unaccountability".
5. Either way, the elected reps betrayed the trust of the people
6. Because the elected representatives betrayed the trust of the people, they're unethical to public. ( Note: This is not to be confused with their private lives i.e Elizabeth Wong can sleep half-naked but she's still accountable to the public so long she doesn't betray the trust of the people who elected her. For me, she did nothing wrong)
7. Because crossovers are unethical, it should be banned.
I can't think of making crossovers an exception unless the Government become ruthless and launch genocides and do some crazy things that the interest of the people need to be protected.
But I don't foresee this happening in our country. We are not like that. History shows that our people are living in harmony and are relatively peaceful.
However, we should have this exception just in case. That's the only exception that we should give, and nothing else.
Unless the government of Perak did crazy things like launching genocides to the people of Taiping for example, we should ban change of government due to crossovers.
Likewise, we should ban change of government of the Member of Parliament crossing overs to change Fed Govt.
We should be consistent in terms of principle. I can't say that it's OK to change Fed Govt via crossovers, but it's wrong to change the State Govt via crossovers. If that's the case, I'm just contradicting myself.
A place to breathe
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
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- syamsulhasran
- I'm currently a software engineer. My specific interest is games and networking. I'm running software company called Nusantara Software.
5 comments:
Banning elected officials from switching parties infringes upon their right of association.
Furthermore elections have never been about electing political parties. The law only ever mentions individuals contending for or holding posts and I don't think parties are mentioned even once. Political parties are essentially a support mechanism for people who subscribe to similar ideologies to pool their resources to compete for said positions. "Voting for political party" is a misconception perpetuated by politicians to manipulate the ignorant.
Also, assemblymen don't even have to switch parties to bring down a government. If they manage to bring about a confidence vote, they can just vote against the MB.
PS: Sorry for the double post.
Yes, but I'm looking at two perspectives:
1. Malaysian political reality that associate individuals with parties.
2. "Democracy" as was defined in this post.
My argument is that, we will protect public interest by preventing MP/Assemblymen from crossingovers by switching government in this country.
Also, vote of no-confidence against MB would not bring down the government (and it's unlikely in our political reality so far).
for example, vote of no-confidence against Pak Lah fails to bring down BN government.
But crossing overs now causing the Perak state government essentially to halt, and this is a loss to the people because the govt. basically doesn't operate and public interest is not served.
Also, we should ask ourselves:
Do Malaysian people really see who are they electing?
Not really. They look at the parties first.
The consideration for the "person" only comes when the person has interesting persona. But that doesn't mean anything. E.g Shahrizat lost, that doesn't mean that she has no persona (after all, she's the likely winner in the Wanita post).
Otherwise, people would vote for anyone as long as they're in that party they like.
A case-by-case basis might be true. Would hardcore UMNO guy vote for "i-like-that-guy" PAS. Unless you have a very strong reason (like your relatives that you want to marry her daughter) the answer is likely to be a NO.
One thing that I learn from our discussion is that, I've left a very important assumption in this post:
Malaysian people tend to vote for the party of the elected reps.
They hereby make assumption that the elected reps stick with their party ideology they represent.
Therefore, the wish of the public is this:
Elected reps will cling to party's ideology in the government that they'll form.
For example, people vote for DAP because of "Malaysian Malaysia". etc. The person is a secondary consideration.
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