Leader or crusader?

The greatest politician must humble himself before the lowest constituent. The greatest governor must humble himself before the lowest peasant. The greatest president must humble himself before the lowest citizen. The greatest leader must humble himself before the lowest servant.

Much has been made over the recent Sg Bakap by-election results.

Perikatan Nasional (PN) retained the seat it won in last year’s state election with its majority nearly tripled from 1,563 to 4,267 votes.

Pakatan Harapan (PH), particularly PKR, failed to recapture the seat it held for three terms from 2008 until 2023 on the second attempt.

What is more telling is that the constituency was said to be a PKR stronghold, being the hometown of its president Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar’s deputy and Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was confident that the PH-BN alliance would go on to win the seat, suggesting that a victory would be a present to local boy Anwar.

But it was not meant to be. What does this mean in the grand scheme of things?

Early analysis would say that the support for PN has been galvanised in the area, perhaps owing to the fact that the incumbent, Nor Zamri Latiff, whose demise triggered the by-election was a well-respected figure in the community.

His tenure only lasted nine months and PN’s candidate for the by-election was his former special officer Abidin Ismail who pledged to fulfil Nor Zamri’s vision for the area, ensuring the continuity of his predecessor’s leadership.

At the same time, it meant that support for PH either remained stagnant or suffered slightly.

From the total number of votes, PN only garnered 944 more votes compared to the previous state election. Meanwhile PH lost 3,648 votes, polling only 10,222 from its previous 13,870 votes in the last state election.

This can be explained by the lack of popularity of the PH-led government of late following several key policy decisions, one of which is the diesel subsidy rationalisation.

Last month, I wrote a column urging key leaders of this government, particularly Anwar and Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli, to own up to their inability to deliver their promise of lowering fuel prices.

I said then that the people can take it. They can accept if both leaders would address the issue and admit that they were wrong in the past when they made that promise.

I also said some amount of self-reflection and self-realisation would be refreshing. I still stand by that.

But unfortunately, several days before polling, Rafizi stuck to his guns and attacked the people who are keen to remind him of his past promise.

In his ceramah video, the Economy Minister reacted condescendingly to his critics, addressing dissenters as ‘bodoh’ and ‘bahlol’ (both meaning dense).

It was unbecoming for a minister and a deputy president of a government party. It was tone-deaf to say the least.

The video clip of him was widely circulated and said to affect the PH votes negatively in the by-election.

He was swiftly castigated by Umno youth chief Dr Akmal Saleh, who reminded leaders to not be arrogant. This was echoed by political analysts.

An important point made by pundit Azmil Tayeb of Universiti Sains Malaysia was that humility is crucial when campaigning for Malay votes and that condescending remarks widens the trust gap between the current government and the community.

This happened before during PH 1.0 from 2018 to 2020 when several key leaders who were appointed ministers carried on with their opposition mindset.

Simply put, everything they said was to the detriment of the government’s image as all they could do was to blame someone else for their shortcomings.

Sarawak was not spared from this when the then PH finance minister Lim Guan Eng came here and claimed that we would go bankrupt.

They could not make that transition from opposition to administration members and this was a fact stated by the then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who appointed these people in the first place, in his book.

Dr Mahathir said he himself had to rein in these ministers, often having to give long talks before Cabinet meetings to explain to them how the government works and the ramifications of decisions that they were leaning towards making.

Regardless, politicians when appointed to certain positions in government are expected to behave a certain way and hold themselves to a certain standard.

However, in a world driven by populism where conventions are often bypassed, superseded and even rubbished, that is probably what their voters expect of these leaders – to be combative and on the prowl, politically.

It is time that they realised that they are in government. This is no time to be a crusader.

DISCLAIMER:

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.