For better or worse, quantity is important in a democratic contest. It is about gaining the majority. It is about popularity.
With that as the context, we have to remember we live in a young society. The Department of Statistics estimates that the median Malaysia age in 2010 was slightly above 26 years. In simpler terms, the age of one half of the population today is younger than the median just three years ago. The profile of the Malaysian electorate pretty much reflects the demographics of our society.
Thanks to their sheer size, those in their 20s and 30s are clearly the biggest and thus the most important group. If they had one mind, they collectively could decisively determine the path which the country would take.
But what makes these young people stand out further politically is that most of them will be voting in a national election for the first time in their lives. Their minds more flexible than those belonging to the older generation who more often than not are hung up on legacy issues. Ibrahim Ali, for instance, still has the May 13 incident as his talking point.
So, young adults are the cool kids on the block and the two nationally-relevant political factions are competing to be the friend of these cool kids. The Barisan Nasional-led federal government has launched several policies for that purpose and chief among them are affordable housing and other cash transfers. The federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat promises the same young adults free tertiary education, among others. Both sides are pulling out all stops to be the one special friend.
While I find many of those policies too populist, at least those policies are serious in the sense that they affect a person’s welfare. The existence of a real policy competition between two credible sides is heartening since previously, it was really all about the old, stale, suffocating issues of race and religion. That is not to say that race and religion are no longer factors but at the very least, we have something substantive to base our election on.
But I do have a feeling that the courting is starting to go a bit too far and starting to appear regressive. It is starting to go into the realm of the trivial that debases the very serious nature of our elections. In an effort to become ever more popular, political parties are starting to make entertainment the focal point of their political events, instead of what the parties stand for.
This happened in Penang recently. Barisan Nasional organized its Chinese New Year celebration with Psy, the Korean sensation — and not the Malaysian prime minister — as the star of the event. The hosts of That Effing Show — a sarcastic online talk show focusing on Malaysian affairs — were right on the money when they joked that in the United States, a singer would introduce the president to the crowd but in Malaysia, the prime minister introduced a singer. Such is the office of the prime minister which is obviously too engrossed in crass populism.
While I despise the debasement of the highest political office of the land, I think I understand the reasoning behind it. Young adults are seen wedded together with pop culture. They are the pop culture.
Maybe, just maybe, the politicians think, if they could harness the power of pop culture, if they could show that they have their finger on pop culture, then they could connect with these young adults. We could win their votes, so the politicians thought. At the end, these politicians hoped what happened in Penang stayed in Penang (Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen had a different idea in Malacca, some weeks after).
But this line of thinking — of entertainment, young adults and politics — is potentially insulting to young adults. Is entertainment the thing that matters the most in attracting them to participate in a political process? Are young adults fluffy-headed, uncritical, naïve voters to be wooed with inconsequential gimmicks? Is the future worth a trivial song in an age where one-hit wonders happen almost every week, if not every day? I pray to the god in the mirror for the answer to be no.
I know it did not work in Penang but I do not know if it will never work. I hope that it will never work so that our elections have less possibility of becoming an exercise of triviality. The truth is Barisan Nasional is not the only one guilty of putting entertainment at the center stage or a big part of a political event or rally.
The danger is that if it works and pulls in the votes. When that happens, there goes the future as votes of substantial value are traded for a trivial piece of song popular with the cool kids.
If it does happen, that will be no progress from the days of race and religion. It is just as bad as the days of old.
Prior to traveling to Java, I had never seen a volcano before. And I am happy to write that the first ever volcano I saw with my very own naked eyes were the mythical Mount Merbabu and its twin, Merapi on my early morning approach to Yogyakarta in Central Java. I actually got to the foot of Merapi. Time however was extremely short and so, I did not spend too much time there. Merapi last erupted in 2010 and there were signs of the eruption everywhere. Especially impressive was a crevasse which molten earth ran through downhill. It must have been a sight to remember.
Anyway… this one is not one of those two famous volcanoes however. This is Mount Lawu, I think, slightly to the east of Surakarta, or probably better known as Solo.
I kind of regretted for not spending time in Solo. Nearby are the ruins of Majapahit. Maybe, the next time I decide to have an adventure in Java, I will spend some time exploring Solo and its environs. And I will definitely spend some more time in Yogyakarta. Did I tell you that I love Yogyakarta?
The photo is not the greatest. I took the shot inside of the train, through the glass window. And I was on my long range lens, which allows only limited amount of light into the camera. But I love it still because it is the only concrete thing that I have to remind of where I was, if I ever grow old and lose my memory to become a old man some time in the late 21st century.
Or maybe, hopefully, some time in the early 22nd century. I still want to see my flying cars.
As I have written last week, Malaysia’s 6.4% real GDP growth from a year ago in the fourth quarter of the year hides actual relative weakness in the economy. Consumption growth, investment growth and government expenditure growth slowed. Trade contracted. What contributed to faster overall growth was that both exports and imports decreased in a way that made trade surplus erosion less bad.
That is from the demand side. The weakness can be also be seen from the supply side, specifically, from the labor market.
The Department of Statistics late last week released its monthly labor survey report, which does typically receive much less fanfare. The report simply backs up what I wrote, that economic growth in the fourth quarter was weaker than what the headline GDP number suggests. And definitely less of a bang than most politicians (and pro-Barisan Nasional journalists) suggest. But forgive them. It is an election year.
The average quarterly unemployment rate in the fourth quarter was approximately 3.1%, which was slightly higher than rates in the earlier quarters. Using the Department of Statistics’ seasonal adjustment method, the average quarterly rate came at 3.3%, and that created even more divergence when compared to seasonal adjusted rates in other quarters in the year. You can see the rates here:
It needs to be said that in the wider scheme of things, the unemployment rate is low. Just to stress on the grand-scheme-of-things perspective, here are the monthly rates which the quarterly rates are derived from (note the vertical axis and contrast it with the previous chart):
Nevertheless, I think the actual weakness of the economy can be seen clearer in the retrenchment statistics as released by the by Ministry of Human Resources (which is an even less observed statistics in the financial industry):
That is a big jump. Not as big as those seen in 2009 recession. I have not run any regression to investigate this further but it does appear to say something about the economy in the fourth quarter.
So, the Malaysian economy grew by 6.4% from a year ago in the final quarter of 2012.
When I first saw the headline figure, I was pleasantly surprised. Upon closer inspection however, the whole growth figures appeared weird. After I figured out why it was weird, I became uncomfortable with the high growth rate.
Domestic demand growth slowed significantly (it slowed by 3.9 percentage points in fact from the last quarter). That was the first sign that something was not right. The private demand growth figure is particularly worrying. I had expected its growth to moderate slightly but it slowed by 2.4 percentage points (ppt). That is a lot.
Here comes the ultimate irony: trade saved Malaysia. Despite the bad trade numbers we saw throughout the quarter, the one that pushed growth way above market consensus in change in change was net exports. This is where the weirdness comes in: both exports and imports contracted.
So, with domestic demand down, exports down and imports down, I would not celebrate too much. Would anybody celebrate a 6.4% growth that was caused by those contractions?
The fourth quarter trade surplus is not the kind of surplus I like.
Look at the year-on-year growth and compare the 4Q growth with 3Q:
So, if you think in this terms, the lower rate of deterioration of net exports or in better phrase, trade surplus, provided considerable room for faster overall growth. Graphically:
At the end of the day, the high 6.4% growth hides something worrying: the 6.4% growth was only possible because of mathematical interactions. Domestic demand and total trade did relatively badly.
On the bright side however, the future may appear to be much better than the fourth quarter. And I think it is important to emphasize that even without the improvement in change in trade surplus, the domestic economy did grow anyway.
p/s 2 — you can see the net exports level although looking at the level while thinking in change in change can be difficult:
