James Chin: Institutional, structural problems exist in every GE

The national reconciliation that the Barisan Nasional government will embark on as part of a move to heal the racial and political divisions that have sparked in the wake of the 13th general election is not really necessary.

This was the opinion of Professor Dr James Chin from the Institute of South East Asian Studies (Singapore) who said institutional and structural problems exist in every general election.

"Therefore, the problems and the solutions are the same for every general election.

"Institutional problems include ethnic based political parties, centralised federation and religion biased public policies while structural problems include the lack of free media, and inequality of inter and intra ethnic.

"The solutions are to open up the political system, allow independent institution, have free media and deal with corruption, racism and bigotry, " he said at an interactive discussion about the consultation on developing a national agenda for reconciliation at PJ Hilton yesterday.

James said the reason why nothing has been changed despite having the same problems for every election is because of lack of political will and a weak civil society.

"The most important thing that we can do now is to create unity among the civil society and get both sides of the political divide to listen, " he said at the discussion initiated by the Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), University Kebangsaan Malaysia and the Prime Minister's Department's National Unity and Integration department.

Meanwhile, another speaker Professor Terence Gomez from University Malaya looked at the General Election trends in the past and spoke about the relationship between state and society.

"There is a state versus society problem at hand on how society has moved on and the state stuck on a time rut.

“To overcome this, there needs to be changes in the Attorney General’s department, the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Securities Commission to curb corruption.

“The Election Commission (EC) needs to be independent and there need to be an end to money politics,” he said.

The discussion was the result of a review of the 13th general election by a group of academic institutions and civil society.

They recognised the link between national reconciliation, inclusive development and human rights where the focus must be that people irrespective of their ethnic, age, gender or location must be given equal opportunities to prosperity, harmony, happiness and quality of life.

They came up with five major themes to be built on upon including the need to recognise the new socio-political realities which are changing the landscape of Malaysian politics in the post election context.

Other themes include the need to strengthen inclusive and participatory development and a need for major institutional changes which will enhance democracy and inclusive development.