Unity government? No Thank You

Written by The Edge Malaysia

Friday, 19 June 2009 15:45

Let us go straight to the point. All the talk about political parties setting aside their differences to form a unity government is not in the public interest. What does a unity government mean? It means political parties coming together to form a cartel that will protect their interests and not the interests of the public.

A cartel equates to monopolistic power, which means voters do not have a choice of parties or alliances to choose from. It is no different from, say, all the hypermarkets such as Tesco, Giant and Carrefour coming together to forge a “united hypermarket coalition”. Once that happens, they will not compete with each other but will collude and fix prices that will generate exorbitant profits for themselves at the expense of the consumers.

In economics, it is called oligopoly. In politics, the term is oligarchy. Both have the same effect of concentrating power in the hands of a small group at the expense of the rest of the country.

The outcome of the March 8, 2008 general elections is the creation of a competitive two-party political system. This can only be good for the country because politicians and political parties now have to govern and behave better because voters now have a genuine choice.

But some politicians and political parties want to go back to a near-monopolistic or one-party system because they want to go back to their old ways. They do not want to have to be more accountable to the people. They cannot stand to live in fear of being thrown out because voters now have a choice and do not fear throwing out a government that is arrogant, corrupt and do not deliver its promises to the people.

Just as we do not support monopolies in business, we also do not support a one-party system, whether it is one that is dominated by Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat.

After 52 years of independence and the slow evolution of our democratic system, Malaysians finally have a competitive political system that puts real power into the hands of the voters rather than be concentrated in the hands of a few politicians and political parties. Let us not throw that away so quickly just because some politicians are not comfortable with it.

A unity government? No, thank you.

Unity government a betrayal all around < Prev		Next >Malaysia’s ‘knee’ and ‘swing’ in need of a fix

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