Election is nearing and among policy-minded voters, it is not difficult to spot manifesto discussions. As someone with some implementation experience in government, let me say the last Pakatan Harapan manifesto was difficult. I knew this before I was pulled into the whole business: I reviewed the manifesto and summarized it as the following: the economic plank was “difficult to stomach wholly” but the other parts, particularly the institutional agenda, were what we needed. Given my concerns were institutional in nature, I was willing to give a blind eye to the economic plank, and support the institutional aspect wholly.
Looking back, the economic manifesto rode on popular anger quite effectively. That explained the kitchen sink approach taken by its authors. GST, monopoly, living costs, corporate corruption and other concerns were all meshed into one big document, which did not jive together. The authors knew what they wanted.
Unfortunately, riding the wave, and actually executing the policies were two very different things. Mahathir famously said ‘we’ did not expect to win, and so did not expect to implement those promises. Manifesto bukan kitab suci; manifesto isn’t a holy book. That highlighted the difficulties associated with the economic aspects of the manifesto, especially after GST was abolished just weeks after the 2018 election, and more importantly, before the Finance Minister was sworn in to bring SST back.
The next election, Pakatan Harapan can do better. They need to do better because the same mid-2010s anger is no longer there. There is little to match that economic anger, save the stubborn but relaxing global food prices and rising recession risks.
If I were to write the manifesto all by myself, I would reiterate the institutional aspects and reuse a good chunk for the 2022/2023 general election, and come up with a new one for the economic side. On the economics, I would reject the 2018 kitchen sink approach. I would instead set up overarching national goals. What do I mean by that?
In the kitchen sink approach, almost everything economic-related concerns were siloed off with little concerns to bigger concerns. One way to put it simply is that the proposed solutions were necessarily single-minded and siloed that the same proposed solutions ignored their effects on other things, like government finances and economic growth. At the implementation stage, at times this left those solutions contradicting each other, leaving individuals implementing those siloed solutions fighting each other and accusing the other side as blocking manifesto fulfillment. For instance, when Pakatan Harapan abolished GST without regards to policy sequencing, notwithstanding the previous problem with refunds (truly, the additional government revenue was lowered than BN admitted), how exactly the government would finance other parts of its economic promises? PTPTN? Highways? Petrol subsidies?
As you can see, the kitchen sink approach works from funding supply first, and then effectively takes the funding demand as an afterthought. This caused the troubles Mahathir identified so early. You ended up with insufficient funding supply to meet rising funding demand.
In the overarching national goals, it should work the other way round: start from funding demand-side first, and then work the funding supply-side afterwards.
To do this, we have to ask ourselves, what do we want for Malaysia?
Do we want to maintain our largely free, government revenue-financed healthcare system?
Do we want a welfare system given the damage Covid-19 has done to the financial security of many Malaysians?
Do we want a good education system? What kind?
Do we want better cities? Transport policy?
Do we want stronger defense?
Do we want to climate change infrastructure? Energy policy?
What?
This requires deep discussions among many parties, from lay users to experts. It has to be multidisciplinary, exactly so to avoid the silo problem that the 2018 Pakatan Harapan manifesto suffered (and contemporaneously, the Ministry of Health’s ongoing white paper).
And this way, we can be honest when it comes to taxation: taxes have to rise.
The truth few willing to say loudly because it is unpopular is that the Malaysia government lacks funding to do a whole lot of things due to low taxation. We can raise the deficit ratio, but even so it would not be enough to meet various legitimate demand associated with basic functions of government like health and defense (let us not talk about unorthodox fairy tales about ‘printing money’). For a country aspiring to be a “first-world” with worsening demography (but still young), our tax (and the bigger government) revenue to GDP ratio is low. That fact has caused unnecessary outsourcing of basic functions to the private sector. The same fact is the reason behind a whole lot of off-budget borrowings and spendings, which are nontransparent and significantly raises corruption risk in an environment where underfunded institutions cannot play their check-and-balance role properly.
To tell this truth, you have to tell the funding demand-side story: what do you want?
Of course, not all wants can be entertained lest the same problems besetting the 2018 manifesto would come back. You cannot want a well-run public transport system while wanting blanket petrol subsidies and eye-roll-worthy car duties cut. You cannot want a working revenue-funded health system while supporting tax cut for private insurance and spending at private hospitals. You cannot want a fully-funded education system while supporting tax cut for private education institutions. You cannot want a healthy Malaysian population but keep sugar cheap. You cannot want a good road while wanting a low road tax and cheap petrol.
Manifesto authors have to choose instead of putting everything into the kitchen sink. Here is where leadership is needed: decide on the policy direction instead of a Hail Mary rush.
And also, of course, manifesto has to be popular. It has to have its hooks. But those populist promises can be brought in line with the overarching themes. For example, have public transport cheap, with discount and vouchers and everything, and admit the system will always be in the red, to which the government will have to fully fund it directly (leaving financial performance for public transport system second in priority to physical performance).
Be direct about the funding demand, and through that, we can be honest about funding supply, and taxation.
I should add that the institutional aspect of the 2018 manifesto worked because it had an overarching goal: improving the overall check-and-balance mechanism and all of them are linked to one another in one way or another. It was not a kitchen sink.
To summarize it all: the next manifesto should be driven by overarching goals, instead of a laundry list of grouses. In other words, do not throw everything into the kitchen sink.
