Press Statement By Chiew Chiu Sing:
Both ruling and opposition parties should work together in the interest of the people. The consensus reached between the government and the opposition parties in Perak is a good example. It’s the first bipartisan politics done for the good of the people, since the independence of Malaysia, making way for the country to become more maturely developed politically since the change of government in 509.
Rather than the narrow personal agenda, the consensus between the ruling party and the opposition in Perak will bring more comprehensive reforms to benefit the people.
These reforms include the assignment of opposition members as the chairman of public accounts committee, more administrative power to the members, equal constituency funding for opposition members, appointment of opposition members into state disaster management committee, recognition of opposition parties leader, and funding to opposition offices.
This is to ensure the effectiveness of policies implementation, allowing the people from the ruling or opposition constituencies to be taken care of by all their representatives.
The Perak state government also make fair allocations to schools and religious groups of various origins. These reforms symbolizes the progression of democracy towards time, and not standing still for decades.
Sadly, some political parties are still trying to prevent this positive political progress for the sake of their narrow party interests indiscriminately, and fail to carry forward democracy, so as to benefit more people.
Democracy is not only about “winner the king and loser the outlaw” as if the government is the only entity to serve the people.
In fact as the ruling the party, government should allocate grants and funds to opposition members to perform their duties, rather than punishing them with no allocations.
“Democratic politics” is whether you are in power or not, and if you are you are called the government and if you are not yet the government then you are called the opposition.
After all, funds of the government comes from tax payers of both side of the political divide. Thus voters in the constituencies won by the opposition should be served with allocations from government too.
That is why during the government of the Pakatan Harapan, same allocations were provided to the constituencies of the opposition from the Barisan Nasional, This is showing respect and responsibility to the voters in the constituencies.
Today, the political development in Perak is also due to a more balanced distribution of power between the ruling and the opposition parties. Based on the distribution of seats, they need to support each other, and the role of the opposition party is recognized by the Perak state government and reciprocated. In return it is the people who will be be the biggest beneficiaries.
This also proves that one-sided politics is actually hindering the healthy development of democratic politics where the voters are not benefiting the most of the situation.
