Tag: Pakatan Harapan

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[3002] Reading George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia or… “Nak PN ke?”

I suppose if we are intent on finding similarities between two events however different they are, we would find it one way or another. Some of us are wired to find patterns or connections, even where none exists. A cat in the clouds that sort of things. Apophenia.

I kept telling myself that while reading George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia recently. However I tried adjusting down my pattern-finding bias, my mind kept on returning to contemporary Malaysian politics each time Orwell describes the republican politics of the late 1930s Spanish Civil War. As I opened Wikipedia to understand the war through a wider lens, I thought, indeed, there was a lesson, or two, from Spain for Malaysia.By Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved.

The differences between the 1920s/1930s Spain and the 2010/2020s Malaysia are aplenty. Spain experienced multiple military coups during those decades that makes Thailand a more appropriate comparison instead of Malaysia. And the Spanish conflict was bloodier than what Malaysia underwent in the 2010s and 2020s: our currently political conflicts are more boring when compared to the Spanish passion of the interwar period.

But if the Spanish Civil war was to be stripped of its details and the conflict made general, there are parallels to the today’s Malaysian reality. And the parallel is this: by the 1920s, support for the traditional powers—that is the monarchy along with the religious Christian class—was in rapid decline (within Malaysian context, throughout the 2000s and the 2010s, traditional power holders in the form of Umno suffered sustained severe erosion of support). So much so that by 1931, the king fled country over rising republican influence. Soon, the Second Spanish Republic was established (again here within Malaysian context, that runs parallel to the election of Pakatan Harapan as the federal government in 2018).

The Republic went through some difficulties right from the beginning. The traditionalists were feeling the heat of radical reforms. Land redistribution and restrictions imposed on the Church from owning properties were proceeding rapidly and pushing the traditionalists out of power further. Meanwhile, weak official responses to certain events that favored the traditionalists left republican supporters thinking the government was betraying them. All this took place with the Great Depression happening in the background. Times were just tough for almost everybody. This feels all too familiar for the 2020 Malaysia.

For the 1930s Spain, the political tensions eventually boxed everybody into an armed conflict. One on side was the republican government supported by the communists, the anarchists and the liberals, who are largely urban dwellers supported by the Soviet Union and Mexico. On the other side were the nationalist rebels comprising the monarchists, Christian conservatives and a group of fascists. By and large, the nationalists were rural folks backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Of interest is here the divisions within the republican ranks, which is one of two main subjects of Homage to Catalonia (the other being war conditions experienced by Orwell). By 1937, a year after the civil war officially began, republican politics was becoming immensely complex but it could be generalized as a competition between the anarchists and the communists. While there was a republican government at the national level, various institutions and cities were controlled by different factions of the republican supporters, with the anarchists and the communists being the more influential factions.

The anarchists wanted a revolution in the sense that workers would control the means of production. The communists wanted those means controlled by the state. The rivalry created a civil war within a civil war, which the communists won and purged the anarchists from government (while I am in no way stating that Rafizi Ramli is an anarchist, the leading-PH party PKR did push Rafizi aside). That communist victory was irrelevant however. So weak was the government from infighting that they eventually succumbed to the fascist rebellion led by Francisco Franco, who would hold on to power for the next 40 years.

Orwell, who was fighting for the Spanish republic with the anarchists, saw the purging as a betrayal, which is perhaps the same feeling many Pakatan Harapan supporters currently feel of the current government. In fact, Orwell writes several pages about being disillusioned, which again, a feeling that appears to be widespread about Pakatan Harapan supporters.

Yes, he felt betrayed but the realist him wrote something for the disillusioned:

As for the newspaper talk about this being a ‘war for democracy’, it was plain eyewash. No one in his senses supposed that there was any hope for democracy, even as we understand it in England or France, in a country so divided and exhausted as Spain would be when the war was over. It would have to be a dictatorship, and it was clear that the chance of a working-class dictatorship had passed. That meant that the general movement would be in the direction of some kind of Fascism. Fascism called, no doubt, by some politer name, and—because this was Spain—more human and less efficient than the German or Italian varieties. The only alternatives were an infinitely worse dictatorship by Franco…

Whichever way you took it it was a depressing outlook. But it did not follow that the Government was not worth fighting for as against the more naked and developed Fascism of Franco and Hitler. Whatever faults the post-war Government might have, Franco’s regime would certainly be worse. [George Orwell. Homage to Catalonia. 1938]

In other words, “Nak PN ke?”

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Economics Politics & government

[2991] Malaysia’s 5G network: the search for the second-best solution has gone awry

Malaysia’s 5G policy is rife with unnecessary controversies. We could have a plain vanilla rollout plan but the power that be likes it complicated and here we are now. Perhaps, this is the hallmark of the Pakatan Harapan government: the more complicated it is, the better.

That vanilla rollout plan—very likely the best solution available—was this: auction the 5G spectrum to the highest telco bidders with the sufficient competencies and then let the winners carry out the necessary investment needed to roll out the 5G service. Malaysia has done this before with its 4G technology and that model worked reasonably well.

The ‘best’ here is qualified: it is from the government’s point of view. And the vanilla plan is a simple, transparent and a proven process. It provides the government with billions of additional revenue that Putrajaya needs for various pressing public purposes. While consumers will bear this cost in the form of high telecommunication fees, the market-based approach will allow the government to reallocate resources from high profitability private sector to the public sector (like healthcare, education and/or even defense that are in dire need of funding).

However, the market-based approach ignores a number of concerns that might be valid. Some concerns are redundant infrastructure/investment, slow rural rollout, vertical integration among the telcos, and higher cost to the consumers. Expanding these points briefly:

  • Redundant infrastructure: there is an argument that 5G and overall telco infrastructure are a natural monopoly: it is cheaper (and more efficient) to build a comprehensive infrastructure instead of multiple redundant networks with holes in the coverage (yes, there are cases when competition is inefficient). This argument goes hand-in-hand with economies of scale to be had with one giant infrastructure instead of having multiple networks.
  • Slow rural rollout: telcos had rolled out 4G technology slowly in the past by focusing on urban areas and delaying investment in the countryside. This is understandable because telcos have to get their returns fast and the cities are the gold mines. Investing on the countryside came much later because the returns here lower compared to the cities. I personally find this unconvincing because 5G technology (as far as I understand it… but I am happy to be corrected) is not meant for industrial and commercial uses. 4G should be able to cater to typical consumer usage.
  • Vertical integration: Here, the concern is telcos will enjoy vertical integration (the public is used to the idea of horizontal monopoly, but different kinds of monopoly exist), which is a control over a swath of telco value chain. This kind of control will allow telcos to enjoy much higher pricing/market power (basically, higher profit margin) versus a model without such integration.
  • Higher cost to end-consumers: The auction cost borne by telcos, their redundant investment cost and the effects of vertical integration will be passed to consumers. A telco price war could mitigate some of these problems but after controlling for that and other pricing regulations, telecommunication fees here will likely the highest compared to other models that exist out there.

I have summarized these points (and more) in a table below, taking into account how it affects 3 relevant parties: the government, the telcos and consumers.

Summary of 3 5G models in Malaysia with 3-party evaluation

These concerns are among the top reasons behind the search for the second-best solution in the late 2010s. That second-best solution in the end morphed into the single wholesale network that Digital Nasional Berhad is. Under the SWN setup, there are no auction while infrastructure investment cost are pooled by all (participating) telcos. Meanwhile, the government via DNB will regulate a 5G rollout plan more tightly so that rural locations do not get left behind. In summary, we have a single infrastructure, theoretically faster rural rollout and lower cost to consumers relative to the market-based option. Given this setup, it is appropriate to call this as a consumer welfare-maximizing model (line #2 in the table above).

Not everybody is happy with the best solution (hence, the search for the second-best): consumers and politicians who regularly play the political of living costs do not like it because it is costly. And Pakatan Harapan tends to play the politics of living costs by too much, as I have argued before. That politics affected the government of the day.

And yes, not everybody is happy with the second-best solution: telcos do not like it because they do not get vertical integration—to put it differently, they do not get to control the infrastructure. Instead, they get is a shared infrastructure with the government having a stake in it. All this points to lower profitability relative to the market-based approach.

However, awkwardly, the government is unhappy with the best and the second-best solution (for reasons I will not go into but which highlights the fact that there are more than 3 parties involved). And they have decided to deviate away from the two models. But instead of instituting improvements, the government appears to be taking the worst aspects of the first two models (see line #3 in the table). For the government, they get no auction revenue and weaker control over 5G infrastructure. The only real winners in the deviated model are the telcos since they do not face auction cost, they get full control over their networks and eventually, consumers will have cough out money for all that. This is ironic given how close the politics of living cost is to Pakatan Harapan.

Another point behind the deviation is the undermining of the second-best approach. The current policy adopted by the government effectively is dismantling the SWN and encouraging telcos to do individual and redundant networks. Because of the way the SWN/DNB works, telcos can pull out of it and join the second network. There are even talks for the third network and it is not hard to imagine almost telcos will have their own network if things go as it is. The fragmentation will present a challenge to profitability (or even viability) of the SWN model: individual telcos will only invest in profitable (largely urban) areas while DNB will be forced to invest in non-profitable (largely rural) locations, which will guarantee the failure of the SWN model.

The logical end to the current policy is as outlined in the line #3 in the table: the negative effects of market-based approach but without its benefits for the government and consumers, together with the negative effects of the second-best solution without its benefits for the government and consumers. To reiterate, the winners will be the telcos.

Winners and losers of the current Malaysia 5G policy.

Looking back, the search for the second-best approach was unwise, especially when the best approach was simple, transparent and a proven successful process. Opening the door to the next best solution has now led us to the worst of solutions. That search has now gone awry, leaving a complicated inefficient set of telecommunication policies.

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Politics & government Society

[2975] Do not blame Muda by too much

Ralph Nader was a popular figure in some of the progressive parts of America. He gave speeches in Ann Arbor several times when I lived there, and once ahead of the 2004 presidential election, he had to defend himself from vote-splitting accusation. In 2000, Al Gore lost the presidential election to George Bush with the narrowest of margin, with the Naders’ Greens won substantial votes as the third party candidate. Given that Nader and the Democrats’ bases overlapped, it was easy for bitter Democrats to claim that Nader took votes away from Al Gore, and paved the way for Bush’s presidency. Nader defended himself by saying that if he did not put himself on the ballot, those who had voted him would likely have not gone out to vote anyway.

I see Pakatan Harapan supporters blaming Muda for vote-splitting, and for easing Perikatan Nasional’s advances in Selangor. For a number of seats PH lost, the loss margin was smaller than the votes Muda won, even as Muda lost all of their deposits.

And it is easy to dislike Muda this time around. The episode in Bukit Gasing was Muda’s act of self-sabotage. Their asset declaration exercise was less than truthful, and so, to me, insulting. More than several candidates were nothing more than rich kids with little understanding of society or policy. Their campaign messages were jumbled up badly, confusing local, state and national policies all at once. I came out of the 2 weeks campaigning period from a position of neutral-to-mild skepticism near the beginning, to that of a dismissal by voting day. The latest set of candidates undid some good work earlier ones like Lim Wei Jiet have done.

Yes, it is easy to dislike Muda but Nader’s defense applies here.

The low turnout suggests PH bases were uninspired this time around. PH’s pandering to the deep conservatives on the far side is one possible reason for these people not to go out and vote. And there are people, who voted for PH the last round, openly said their would vote for a third choice as a sign of protest.

So, if there was no Muda, it is hard to say whether those Muda votes would have gone to PH or BN.

But more than that, for every vote Muda got, there were more PH voters who did not go out and vote. Blaming Muda is an excuse to ignore the much bigger point: PH base is dissatisfied. PH is committing the same mistake PH 2018-2020 did: trying to get the votes they could never get on the far side of the spectrum, at the expense of the middle voters and PH bases. And these voters protested and did not bother to go out.

This dissatisfaction has to be addressed.

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Politics & government

[2973] Harapan must not let Pakatan pussies speak for the coalition

We all understand why Pakatan Harapan needed to ally with Barisan Nasional. At the very end of the last political cycle, we were faced with stark choices: have an imperfect alliance between the reform-minded individuals and everything the grand old party presents, or live under an incompetent conservative regime that would rewrite what Malaysia would mean so completely. Given the world as it was at that particular point of that, the imperfect alliance was the preferred option.

Such imperfect alliance will always present Pakatan members and supporters with challenges. Compromises will have to be made and that is completely understandable and reasonable.

But not all things can be compromised, and compromises must involve both sides, not just one. If only one side compromises, and willing to compromise everything, then something is wrong.

That is where some Pakatan members and supporters are today.

Whenever new political appointments were made for the benefits of Umno, some Pakatan supporters would use the imperfect alliance as an excuse. “This is not a Pakatan government. It is a unity government.”

Now, there is movement to get Najib Razak, barely several months in prison, pardoned. Disappointingly, some Pakatan supporters now use the same template excuse without even thinking what it means. Too eager to defend the Pakatan government against any criticism, the template is used as get out of jail card for every single problem the government faces. They do not even bother to right the wrong. So fearful of any threat of instability to the government, they lose their backbone. They bend over without making any effort to push back.

Those are who I call Pakatan pussies. No backbone. No accountability.

These spineless pussies, when faced with difficult questions from Pakatan supporters, would go back to their list of lazy excuses and say “do you want a Pas government, or Pakatan? Choose.”

Betting chips down when they are not

The stark choices Malaysians collectively, and Pakatan supporters specifically, faced in November 2022 came to being when the chips were down. It was the nuclear option at the very end of the road.

We needed the nuclear option to sharpen the mind of many. “Pas or Pakatan” was a simple decision tree to let people discover for themselves the consequences of November choices. Veil of ignorance, so-to-speak. You present the many with the destinations, and make them work for themselves the roads towards the preferred destination. These allowed them to see the world as it was, and accept the decision made, however unpalatable the road was.

We are no longer in November 2022. The pressures are much less intense. The timeline is easier. In fact, attempts to get Najib Razak pardoned have not even started earnestly.

Yet, these Pakatan pussies are inappropriately using the nuclear option, betting the chips down too soon.

Red lines

Pardoning Najib Razak, in my mind, is a red line in any compromise between Pakatan and Barisan. I have at least three reasons why that is so.

One, he and his supporters have not expressed any remorse. In a society where corruption is still rampart, example must be set so we can begin to reset our morals. To free an unremorseful man is the wrong message to send in pursuit of a moral society.

Two, it opens Pakatan Harapan to partisan attacks from Pas and their allies. So far, Perikatan Nasional, Bersatu especially, appeared have been crippled. They are now in search of an issue to rejuvenate their political fortune. They have tried to make EPF withdrawals as a rallying point. They have not been successful there. Pakatan Harapan seemingly blessing the pardon—does not matter explicitly or implicitly—will be the one point Perikatan needs. Pas (and Umno) did that with ICERD and the death of  Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim, and came back from the dead in 2019.

Three, the long run is not as static as many make it out to be. In November 2022 when decisions had to be made in a matter of days if not weeks, the decision tree in which the nuclear option was represented was static. This is especially so when election had been concluded. It is a mistake to think the same statics will work over longer time horizon. People… voters… adapt to situations. If you keep using the nuclear options too many times, then people will begin to dismiss it and become immune to any similar exhortation. Additionally, it is quite easy to imagine more and more parties entering the arena competing for Pakatan’s base as a sign of dissatisfaction. At the very least, non-voting will be an issue. This has happened before not too long ago. In other words, in the long term, there is a real risk of current Pakatan voters deserting the coalition.

The final point is not a mere theoretical musing. In 2009 until 2013 when Najib was busy promoting various liberalization that he appeared to be a liberal, his men and women dismissed concerns about Umno’s voting base. “They would have no where to go.” That was quickly proven untrue in 2013, which partially led Najib to turn around and embraced racist politics more rabidly.

Message: do not take your voting base for granted.

Get a backbone and push back

Compromises have to be made. But there have to be red lines. Pardoning Najib is one of those red lines. Pardoning Najib risks the long-term viability of Pakatan Harapan, and we need Pakatan Harapan to succeed in order to push back racist and fascist forces.

Pakatan needs to push back. We need to tell Umno we will not support any pardoning, and in fact, opposes it. We can make it difficult, and raise the cost of them doing so.

And please, no kop-out by saying it is a royal prerogative. In so many ways, the royals are accountable to the people too. Rakyat itu Raja.

At the end of the day, Pakatan Harapan will have our urban fortresses. Right now, it is Umno that faces annihilation with Bersatu and Pas outside having the grand old party for lunch. It is Umno that faces existential crisis, not Pakatan. Remember, that crisis is Najib’s own doing. Too many in Umno are too blind to see what outsiders already know. Here, Pakatan needs to advise Umno the folly they are committing.

If the stubbornness continues, Pakatan needs to be careful so we do not sink with Umno.

This is why we need to push back.

And this is why Pakatan Harapan cannot let these Pakatan pussies speak for Pakatan. Not only they are spineless, they are myopic too.

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Politics & government

[2965] Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan are a means to an end

It has been a long wait. Anwar Ibrahim is finally the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Many have remarked how he deserves it. Or that he has been cheated out of it before. Or everybody has had their chances and now, it is Anwar’s turn to rule. Or he suffered to get here.

But, I tell myself that it is never about Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar, and Pakatan Harapan for that matter, is a means to an end.

The end is something much bigger than any one of us. The end is a Malaysia where everybody has a place under the sun, living in dignity and as equal, prosperously.

It will not be easy to achieve that, especially when even such a goal is not quite concrete. It is fluffy. It is intangible, at least the non-economic part. In fact, it is clear not everybody will agree—vehemently disagree at that—to the kind of equality envisaged in that kind of Malaysia.

The first step towards that end, is clearly reconciliation between major groups in the country, and some kind of compromise. But that reconciliation cannot be about making everybody happy. There are principles and ground rules to be adhered to. That we are all Malaysians, that we all have dignity that must not be violated. Reconciliation does not mean reconciling everything. Something, like deep fascism, cannot be reconciled with inclusive values.

The meeting ground has to be reasonable.

Ultimately, the core of that inclusive values, to me are (among several others) the end to the means that are Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan.