PSM: Who calls the shots in Pakatan? Everyone seems to be like headless chicken
Everyday we get more and more confused on how Pakatan Harapan (PH) actually makes decisions. There seem to be many ways to it. It is also frustrating that PH continues to occupy the main media space with all their infighting rather than solving common people’s issues.
Believe me when I say, people are getting fed up.
For example, the biggest issue on the power transition between Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. It seems to be that it would not be discussed in a democratic process.
So Mahathir and Anwar continue to issue or deny statements and everybody has a field day in making predictions, lobbying and fighting over it.
Can’t they put a stop to this?
The rakyat, who wants to see if real and pressing issues are resolved such as housing, healthcare and cost of living end up hearing this bickering and petty arguments over and over again for such a long time.
Then we have the PKR fiasco where Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali and Zuraida Kamaurddin not attending party meetings and all their issues are discussed via press statements and counter statements.
What has happened to party decision making process or party discipline? How can PH tell the rakyat to unite or be resilient against the economic problems caused by external forces when they cannot even resolve internal party matters in meetings or through negotiations.
The fighting goes on nonstop in social media using trolls, statements but except in proper meetings. Again can’t they put a stop to this?
Then we have Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng and his TAR UC funding issue. Again where and how does the minister make the decision? How can he announce something during his budget speech and immediately change it later?
In the Budget 2020 speech, the Government slashed allocation to TAR-UC to one million. Then after getting whacked, the same minister says he can give them an additional RM29 million if its board of directors relinquish their posts.
Suddenly he has got RM29 million extra and now, he says the money will be paid through an alumni association. Does Lim need to check if anyone about this or is it his absolute prerogative? Where and how the decisions are made?
Yesterday at the annual Socialism Conference organised by PSM, I was again shocked after hearing Terence Gomez’ views on the Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 policy.
He questioned where they discussed this. Gomez said this is the biggest major long term policy of the PH government but it seems there were only two players involved in the planning – The Economic Affairs Ministry and the Institut Masa Depan Negara(MASA) which is a Bersatu outfit founded by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Gomez said that even during the Vision 2020 and the National Development Policy by former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, there were much more inputs taken from various stakeholders.
Have we regressed under PH?
During the Najib era, we were often told that many decisions were solely made by Najib as the Prime Minister and if there were questions raised, the government would say that it was the Prime Minister’s prerogative.
So PH. How do you make decisions and do the rakyat have a say in it? We are always told about how the race and religion card is being played by the opposition to divide the people.
But here we have many instances where PH supporters themselves are divided because they do not know how things are decided and which press conference to follow.
Is this a question of freedom in a democracy, free for all or recipe for chaos?
S.Arutchelvan is Parti Sosialis Malaysia deputy chairperson
