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Amin Iskandar is a freelance writer who has contributed to several publications such MalaysiaKini, Berita Keadilan, and Suara Keadilan.
The 29-year old is also a political activist who thinks this country should strive to practise pure democracy. Amin does not affiliate himself with any political party because he believes in people’s power movement where there are little or no political influence.
Amin Iskandar
He is currently serving as Executive Director in the National Institute for Electoral Integrity (NIEI), an NGO which promotes education program for voters and monitor election process. The organisation's main objective is to help and initiate reform of Malaysia electoral system. .
His position as an election observer has brought him to many places around the globe such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
He is currently completing his fellowship at Asian Public Intellectual (API) 2009-2010 on Election Monitoring during authoritarian regime of Marcos and Soeharto.
He is also an independent musician who has written several songs on social critics, life and love. He has recorded an album entitled Hentikan Perang Sekarang. Amin also actively writes his ideas and opinions in his blog, www.aminiskandar.com.
Malaysian Digest recently caught up with Amin and posed him some questions.
How do you feel about Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s administration since he became the Prime Minister?
His appointment is perceived to strengthen the Barisan Nasional (BN) led government in many ways compared to Pak Lah years. He struggles hard in bringing changes especially the perception towards BN. That’s where the 1Malaysia concept comes. His biggest challenge is to materialise the 1Malaysia concept in opposition to the “warlords” in BN, especially within UMNO itself, who are apparently not too happy with the concept.
We can see a lot of contradicting statements from many leaders from the government especially when it comes to race and religion.
Najib and his administration have been working very hard to recover our economy. The Economic Stimulus Package that he introduced benefited the contractors who had close link with the government and not the ordinary people. Compare to Taiwan for instance, their government allocated some budget as high as 13.5 billion Taiwanese dollars for the lower income households. Economic stimulus package in Taiwan entails an expenditure of 58.3 billion Taiwanese dollars in infrastructure development, 20.5 billion Taiwanese dollars as financial incentive for small and medium scale businesses, 37.5 billion Taiwanese dollars towards tax holidays for new investments and 13.5 billion Taiwanese dollars as subsidies for low income households.
The main point is that, when government subsidises to the low-income households, they will spend the money and it will generate the economy of the country besides helping them in their daily lives.
How do you feel about the outcome of the last year’s March 8 general election?
As a person who loves democracy, and check and balance, I think the result of March 8 general election is good for the country. I believe that whoever rules the country should not have absolute power, such as 2/3 majorities in the parliament. This is so that the policies that affected the daily life of the people will be discussed and debated in the parliament before it’s being implemented. Before March 8, Malaysian parliament was so boring. No interesting debate because we only had two or three opposition MPs. As a ruling, government has 2/3 majority at that time so there were always plenty of empty chairs because they need not worry in terms of voting since their opponent is in very small numbers.
Now, the situation has changed. Frequently our parliament sessions are extended till late night because of the long debates, which I think, is a healthy sign for the country. On the other hand, Malaysians now have another option besides the ruling government who has ruled the country for more than 50 years.
How do see the outcome of the next general election?
If we look at the history since the beginning of the country, there is a pattern of Malaysian voters swinging back to the ruling government after they gave votes to the opposition in the previous election. For instance, the ruling coalition won in big majority in 1964 general election, a year after the formation of Malaysia. But in 1969 general election, the voters’ shifted to the opposition where we can see the ruling government lost control of Penang and Selangor.
Then during the general election in 1974, the ruling party, the new formed Barisan Nasional led by Tun Abdul Razak to replace Perikatan won back with the bigger majority.
In 1999, the Malay voters swing towards the opposition where we can see the government lost control in Terengganu, the rich oil producing state and they also failed to win the Kelantan state.
Nevertheless in 2004, the voters swing back to the government with the biggest majorities in history when Abdullah replaced Dr. Mahathir. With the strongest majority in the country’s history, Abdullah’s government became arrogant and ignored the demands of the people. There was also infighting within UMNO especially with the intensification of Mahathir’s fraction. One good thing that Abdullah’s government did was to open up a bit of the democracy space. During his era, we can see that the media was more open compared to the previous regime and this caused unhappiness within UMNO and they rallied behind Mahathir who is the strongest enemy of Abdullah Badawi.
Three main factors: Internal fighting of UMNO, wider democratic space and dissatisfaction of people towards BN caused the biggest votes to swing towards the Opposition. From a historical point of view, the voters might swing the votes back towards BN. What PAS has done in Selangor on the beer and SELCAT (Selangor state’s watchdog Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency) issues contributed to this as well.
Based on the survey done by the independent polls body, Zentrum Future Studies, it showed that those participated in the survey had lost confidence in the PAS leadership. The survey, conducted by lecturer Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah showed that the younger generation was not inspired by PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang.
Contrary to public perceptions that young voters were drawn to opposition parties, the survey indicated that 90% of those in the 20-30 age groups had lost faith in the PAS leadership. Among those in the 31-40 age groups, 74% said they did not believe that PAS could move forward under the present leadership.
This might possibly contribute to the voters swinging towards the ruling government if it is true that the young voters had lost faith in PAS. This is because, the young voters are always more prone to support the opposition parties.
What are the positive and negative changes you have seen since the March 8 general election last year?
The positive changes are that both BN and PR (Pakatan Rakyat) are working hard to convince the people that they are the best. So there is this healthy competition which eventually will benefit the people. Besides that some of the mainstream media has come to realize that they will lose the viewers from the PR supporters, if they continue to be biased towards the government. Media Prima is smart for they’ve opened a bigger space for NTV 7 to be more open to attract the PR supporters.
The negative side falls on the free and fair election. We can see that the new PR government have started to learn from the previous BN government on abusing the state government machinery. Even though the abuse is still on small scale such as using state government car for campaigning in the by election, it should be stopped because this is a form of abuse to the people. When PR starts to do the same as what the ruling party did, it will give the impression to the people that both BN and PR are the same. This is not good when the debates on two-party systems are going on in the country.
What do you think about the crisis faced by Pakatan Rakyat due to conflicting political interests/ideology?
A friend of mine from Japan told me a few months ago before the country changed it’s ruling party, that it is normal for a new political coalition to have conflict of political interest and ideology. This is a normal process for a new coalition. The time will come when the coalition will need to work together and keep aside all the ideologies differences to fulfil their dreams to capture Putrajaya.
If PR can’t solve all the internal conflicts before the next 13th GE, we might see the syndrome of 2004 GE happening again in the country. That’s why even though it is normal for a new political coalition to have differences and conflicts the voters might not understand this. All those conflicts should not be made public.
What is 1Malaysia to you and how do you feel about this initiative by our Prime Minister?
1Malaysia, Racial Unity is not a new thing being discussed in our country. After 52 years of independence, we are still discussing about these issues. To me, Malaysia is a failed country in terms of the nation building.
Since the beginning, the people are divided. They don’t go to the same school and when they enter the university, the polarisation is already completed. You can see in the local universities where the Malays only mix with the Malays, Chinese with Chinese, Indians with Indians and etc.
1Malaysia slogan is not enough. We need to revamp all the policies that separated all the races in the country especially in education. I don’t agree with many people who only blame UMNO on the racial polarisation. It’s true that UMNO contributed one part. But we must remember that there’s also a lot of Race Chauvinists out there that don’t want their kids to mix with other races. They also contributed on the race polarisation to the country.
To all the politicians, from BN and PR: Don’t talk about 1Malaysia or racial unity until we can agree that we need only one school for our children. If you still want to separate the kids from learning together since beginning, stop all this talks. This is all rubbish!
Do you feel there’s improvement in racial unity despite our diversity of cultures and religions in recent times or were we more cohesive in the past (during our parent’s time)?
From my opinion, the racial unity is much better during my parents’ time. At that time, most of them went to school together. But at that time, English was used as a medium in the schools. Everybody, no matter Malay, Chinese or Indian has no problem with English; therefore they sent their kids to the national schools.
When the national language is used as a medium in school, the polarisation starts. Now, Malays send their kids to national schools, Chinese to Chinese schools and so too the Indians. So the main problem here is that the national language is still not accepted by all Malaysians. Who is to be blame? Our ministers usually talk in English among themselves so we can see that even our leaders are not sincere in promoting the national language. So how can we expect the people to love the national language?
Do you feel Samy Vellu should step down as MIC president?
I don’t support anybody that had ruled for so long. When you’re in power for so long, slowly you’ll turn to become a dictator. This is what you can see from the experiences of Marcos in the Philippines and Soeharto in Indonesia. So, I think Samy should resign.
What’s your opinion with regards to race politics?
Race politics is a tool that’s been used by the British to rule our country. And it’s an effective tool. The ruling government used the same formula to rule for more than 50 years. What is the result? We still discuss about racial unity after 46 years of the Malaysia formation. Therefore I am against race politics.
How do feel about the notion of a unity government between PAS and UMNO?
This is also crap. Besides race politics, I also hate religion politics. Can you imagine the combination of race and religion politics? Oh my god…
What’s your take on the New Economic Policy (NEP)?
For me, NEP only benefit the cronies of ruling coalition no matter Malay, Chinese, Indians etc. That’s why for so long, nobody questioned this policy. After some time, when the ‘cake’ becomes smaller, you’ll be hearing many people questioning this policy.
In my opinion, NEP has spoiled the Malaysian people especially the Malays. They became lazy and always depend from the government contracts. The Chinese businessman who’ve always ‘bought projects’ also contributed to this. That’s why Malaysia should stop NEP. We need affirmative action for the poor no matter they are Malay, Chinese, Indian, Iban or Kadazan.
How do feel about our education system and the youths of today?
We need to have ‘Revolution’ in our education system in order to compete with the rest of the world. We need to abolish all the undemocratic laws such as UUCA (University and University Colleges Act) in order to give freedom for our students to learn. We need to return the autonomy of the universities in order to make our youths more progressive.
We can’t blame the youth of today. They are the product of our education system which is oppressive to them.
Do you think sex education should be implemented extensively in our schools?
Yes .The kids should been taught about sex in order for them to know the good, bad and implications of it. Without sex education those kids misinterpreted it in the wrong way.
How do you feel about political aide Teoh Beng Hock’s death and the way the authorities have been handling the inquest?
I’m not happy with the way of the authority have been handling it. In the beginning, it seems like the prime minister really cared about this and wanted to solve this issue. After some time, you can see that they don’t care and it seems like they think that it’s very easy for people to forget.
The problem with our prime minister now is, he is merely hangat-hangat tahi ayam, especially in implementing what he says. He talk about 1Malaysia while Utusan Malaysia became a racist newspaper. That’s why I said Najib is weak. He can’t even make his deputy speak in the same language with him.
What are some changes you’d like to see in this country and its administration?
I want to see the government that really protect the people and the people’s rights. I want to see the government that respects the freedom of its people; I want to see government that provides a free and fair elections to the people.
I want to see a government that can manage the wealth of the country and distribute it equally to its people.
Until I see this, I will never stop talking; writing and take action until all those things are achieved no matter BN or PR rule the country.
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