Malaysian politics; Sensitive topics of "muflis" and "tiru"

For me, this is an absolutely interesting topic for discussion.

Repeteadly, Pakatan Rakyat leaders and supporter alike are outraged when suggestions made that their plans may lead the country to go bankrupt (Muflis).

Can we go bankrupt under Pakatan Rakyat?

Before we explore that, I think it is important that we need to understand what is the purpose of politics.

Purpose of Politics

For some, politics is for election of government or a ruler. While this is of course true on some level, but really what is use is politics if it doesn't improve your life?

For me, politics is beyond that, its not just making sure everything is in order, or preservation or governing, it is about the people's life. Politics should be for improvement of  quality of people's life and this should be reflected in their policies, budgets, the law and not limiting to the foreign relationships and policies.

If you understand that, it makes everything simplier, you will not fall into emotional bickering among friends about "muflis", "tiru", "fitnah" and "songlap".

Here I quote from an article written by Steven Sim....
 
I do not know Steven Sim or his political ideologies but those words rings the truth!

"Someone once said that government budgets are politics condensed. A budget actualises policies by moving resources into areas the government deems important. Thus, it is not too much to say that a budget is essentially a moral document because where one’s treasure is, that’s where one’s heart is as well. A budget reflects the priorities and values of a government. They are more than just annual announcements of goodies and certainly much more than just another milestone in the financial year"

The sensitive topic of "muflis"

If you are a follower of my blog, I've written about the issues I found in their cashflow or lack of planning in their plans, which is why most of their plans cannot be successfully implemented. I'm a believer of long term planning and holistic view.

My opinion of Pakatan rakyat's plans are "offering goodies" and measured offering limited to the financial year.

If politics is about improving our quality of life then surely a government's job and the opposition party's job shouldn't be much difference from each other.

The only differance is how they choose to persuade us, by campaigning who can do the job slightly better.

The finger pointing "Tiru!" in my opinion is absolutely irrelevant and it very childlike. 

The reason is I ask myself....

"if  PR do win, will PR reform 100% of the system? Will they undo 100% of what BN have done, and do everything completely different? "

Of course not. 

Their campaing is only look to reform on what they can help them win our votes but if they want to do that, they will need to keep our existing benefit that we already enjoy and then offer us more.

If they are keeping of the government policies so does that mean they "tiru" BN?

The goodies

There are a lot of sweets on the table by PKR that rakyat really craves. The only problem is rakyat assumed that these sweets are added to the package on top of existing benefits. Unfortunately, by definition of prudent spending and with hope of keeping this idea of "we want more" PR will inevitably invites budget cuts.

The term spending wisely can be so easily confused with paying less, ignoring long term planning for positive stimuli to economy. This is why I love that paragraph by Steven Sim "A budget reflects the priorities and values of a government".

Spending cuts is okay if we know and understand what are the cuts  and we can assess if that is what we rakyat wants but unfortunately right now PR is not explaining the cuts. That with a combination of reducing their income and offering more benefit, it's sound like a gateway to muflis.

Here is a link for you to review the "books" and budget gains under PR's administration to understand PR concept of "prudent spending"

http://bicaraheartku.blogspot.se/2013/04/behind-pkrs-numbers-lies-story.html

 Understand the campaign

"PR's campaign sells the idea to not just keep rakyat's standard of living now but to give more disposable income by improving it with all the "free" giveaways without discussing with rakyat the 'real cost implication' and 'real reduction in revenue'. "

Failing to invest for future means failing to stimulating the economy. As per Steven Sim budgets are for not limited to fiscal calendars, the are for our future. This is where I agree with BN methods for investments. 

Why do BN supporter campaign of "muflis"?

In my opinion it is simply to put PR on the spot, to explain how they plan to sustain their concept of campaign "disposable income, giveaways, revenue reductions and prudent spending"

If PR takes the bait and try to explain it, they will no doubt lose smarts voters, becuase the only answers are 

•  The promise cannot be delivered inclusively and effectively because they haven't accounted for all cost ( like free education fails to consider the cost to make IPTS agreement null and void) or

• Sacrifise future investments or

• PKR will have to admit they don't know how it will settle in the economy. They need to put their hand up and say under reformasi it is normal that you cannot plan for sure the ripple effect. If it doesn't work out, the may need to pull back they offering and figure something out while keep our heads out of the water.

If PR pull back their offering after a couple of years then the election campaign is nothing but a big lie.

If PR don't pull the offering then they risk fluctuations in our economy.

For example like selling their assets to make improvement in budgets (and keep us from drowning) while the reformasi effect calms down. That would cost huge, as eventually in order to do their job as a good government to improve quality of our life, they will need to re-invest back what they sacrifised. This simple means they will risk reseting the budget back to deficit.

If PR do not make that hard decision, then yes there is a chance that we risk heading the gateway of muflis.

PR will not answer the muflis questions nor will they publish their full budget. I question why?  

The counter campaign to avoid addressing this issue is simple, it is just by playing on the rakyat's emotiong. PR simply provided a new campaign spin "kalau kami nak buat BN kata muflis, tapi BN tiru boleh pulak".

"Think simply, can we keep inflation down, offer more benefit and also tax less and then hope to acheive reduction in deficit."


This is what I mean when  I say child-like behaviours and many will fail to see the how the real issue for discussion has been avoided.

President Barack Obama said "Nothing shrinks the deficits faster than a growing economy," he said at the White House as he introduced his plan recently.

Under the BN budgets, you need to read this, please, there will big focus is boosting the economy. in fact, the government have made huge efforts in getting Malaysian talents abroad to come home to help the country in this booming plans. 

Some thoughts for you....

• the real limit to government borrowing (and spending) is its ability of boost an economy to produce goods and services.
• BN's efforts in balancing the trading in surplus vs. trading in deficit, this comes back to concept of balance and holistic view.
• The economic safety factor. Economy that risk too much fluctuations will risk their image for stability and reduce trust. Think Greece and Ireland, the two contrast way of dealing with high deficit.
• Think about our government's attitude towards Debt, our image is never to default debt. Compare that to the new attitude that is being promoted by the opposition, wiping out debt? How can a government reduce debt and take on more debt?

Reality check

The process of waiting for calm water after reformasi will be very painful!  While PR deal with this change, they will make have to mistakes and will not be able to manage all of their administrations (think of this in the context of alot of open tender and management with multiple agencies). It is natural for PR to make some of the same mistake as we have seen in the weaknesses of our past system. The questions lies how much of these mistakes can we endure?

 

My opinion is that after 10 years or more, the reformasi plans will stabilise and along side the norm, the mistake also will be part of the new system. Then the natural process will requires PR to go through transformation process for process improvment and internal control issues.

 

For me, Malaysia has already gone through this cycle and now more than ever is a perfect time to transform in order to bring us up the next level, why do we want to reset it?

I am a strong believer in an internal change. If you combined that with previous experience, with strong expertise and with updated system, we can need to walk the final few miles to get there. Why paddles like a mad duck to keep heads out of water when you can take that steps to get where you want us to be?

 

~fida.i~