Tun Mahathir Needs To Remain Irrelevant In The Royal Conversation

Disrespectful. That is how one can describe the relationship between Mahathir and the Malaysian royalty.

Once again, we are subject to another series of ramblings by a should be-forgotten statesman – who now attacks the Johor royal family over his responsibility in losing Pedra Branca.

He claims every excuse on heaven and earth to absolve himself of involvement in the matter, focusing on the supposedly dodgy dealings involving Forest City.

But how can we trust him given his sordid history with the royals?

In 1983, in a fiery speech Mahathir took on the sultans’ royal power for the first time, pushing an amendment to the constitution through to allow a veto by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, or king, to be over-ridden by a parliamentary vote.

Beyond this, we have to be real, the political instability that we see is in fact of Mahathir’s own making.

In his pursuit of his “imagined” Malaysia, Mahathir had turned UMNO and the component parties of Barisan Nasional into a powerful patronage machine – a literal “one-stop shop for handouts and favors”. In order to push whatever “reforms” he saw necessary he crippled every single institution that was supposed to serve as a check and balance to an overreaching executive.

He often sacrificed integrity to secure obedience–and when he couldn’t hand an institution to a loyalist, he would bypass them altogether.

The check and balances established by our founding fathers were dismantled by the same individual who holds power today and ironically it seems that he’s trying to “reform” it in Malaysia Baru in the same manner.

Now it will take time to reform the fundamental flaws our constitutional system in Malaysia that Mahathir created in his first term, but should we trust him alone to fix the system that he broke? On top of the long list of items on the reform agenda?

These include the agenda to correct the national economy and finances and the monumental task to clean up the mess of 1MDB, FGV, Felcra, TH, LTAT and many other mega scale scandals that have bled the nation dry.

Last but not least, there is the need to work out a greater understanding and consensus with royalty on the rule of law and system of constitutional monarchy as the foundation to our democracy.

If we are really to move towards Malaysia Baru, then it will perhaps require a rethink of how what kind of check and balances are required in an objective manner – and that means ignoring the narratives that were prevalent in the Mahathir era.

Yet despite being this sordid history, there is clearly no intention on his part to reconcile his past with the royals.

Malaysians are patient people. We understand that it takes time to change. But we also understand that it is important for our elected officials reflect our goals and commitment to a better nation.

All politicians, as Sultan Ibrahim has mentioned repeatedly, work in the interests of the people.

Everyday Malaysians are suffering, what more with the rising cost of goods, stagnant salaries and lack of jobs for the youth.

These are they real problems that the country faces. To ignore these in favour of a personal vendetta, now that is real disrespect.