‘Being human’: Azmin’s chance to renew voters’ faith

Despite the reservations of the constitutionalists, Selangor now has a new menteri besar in Mohamed Azmin Ali, which allows the state government to pick up the pieces of PKR’s contentious “Kajang move” – the protracted exercise of replacing Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim which has turned out to be a sorry tale of infighting for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

Azmin’s ascension to the apex of the Selangor government is a nod to the realpolitik of power in Malaysia, where having majority support in the legislative assembly has been shown to be of subjective value.

Although there is no indication that Azmin’s appointment may be challenged in the courts, the grounds on which the Selangor Sultan chose him over PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, after she had proven that she commanded the confidence of a majority of assembly members, will continue to engage legal minds, pro-democracy activists and political analysts.

This inquiry will continue because the uncertainty arising from the royal hand in the selection of a head of government has opened an uncharted dimension in the system of constitutional monarchy as conventionally understood.

A more pragmatic question will occupy the people of Selangor who voted for Pakatan in the last general election to continue its reformation of the state’s political culture, economic landscape and democratic environment.

For them to continue to nurture the hope that the Pakatan government can deliver a new brand of governance, Azmin will need to demonstrate an unprecedented level of responsiveness in the delivery of public services to undo the damage caused by Khalid’s obsession with increasing the state’s surplus even at the expense of stalling constituency projects, as Khalid’s detractors say.

An immediate challenge facing Azmin will be to revisit the master agreement to restructure the state’s water sector that the Selangor government signed with the federal government in September, when Khalid was already the caretaker menteri besar.

The Selangor water sector represents a prized category of big budget public works that have involved politically-connected businesses tied up in lucrative long-term contracts that leave the people with the short end of the stick.

For most of Khalid’s tenure as menteri besar, the people watched as he battled with two of the four water concession holders, Puncak Niaga Sdn Bhd and Syabas, to regain control of the water assets.

Among other things, Khalid had blocked Syabas’s attempts to raise the water tariff, which it could do every three years under its 30-year contract. Khalid had argued that a tariff hike would be justified if Syabas reduced the amount of non-revenue water, as laid out in the concession agreement.

With the troubled history shown by the state’s water sector, it is only prudent that the master agreement the Selangor government signed be opened to public scrutiny before the state commits the people to contracts that typically run into decades.

It is disappointing that Khalid, who had otherwise earned plaudits for the prudent management of the state’s coffers, did not disclose the terms of the agreement for public discussion before committing the Selangor government to the heads of agreement for the water deal.

The review of the water agreement will offer Azmin a precious opportunity to demonstrate that Pakatan can start a new chapter in transparency and accountability involving public projects that the people are so clearly asking for.

Handled well, the consultation process for the water restructuring exercise can become the benchmark for access to information, representation and inclusiveness for all public projects going forward.

Another hot potato that Azmin must handle is the public unhappiness over the network of six highways that is planned for the Klang Valley by the Malaysian Highway Authority. As shown by the outcry against the Kidex highway, voters in Selangor who are weary of the traffic congestion all around them, as well as those who will be displaced by the projects, could express their anger through the ballot.

Azmin would do well to draw lessons from the criticism against Khalid for his lack of consultation in the Kidex episode to take a more open, consultative course in his administration. The price may otherwise become apparent in the next general election.

It is important to recognise that transparency in the public awards process not only reduces the possibility of conflict of interest situations from arising, it can curb the inflation of project costs that may be linked to corruption and political financing.

This, of course, is a persistent problem that cannot be resolved without a willingness of political parties and their leaders to establish a transparent system of funding for legitimate political activity in order to reduce the need to finance such activities through business interests.

For Azmin, whose popularity is sometimes attributed to an ability to strike deals, the challenge is to use the powerful position that he occupies to blaze a new trail towards a clean political culture. The people will surely thank him for it.

In the social sphere, although the Khalid administration had taken many encouraging steps towards supporting a multicultural, multireligious environment, this has been clouded by his muted response to the overzealous enforcement action of religious officials in the last year of his tenure.

Criticism of Khalid includes the regret that his failure as the head of government to defend an open, tolerant sociocultural environment in the state indirectly encouraged extremist religious attitudes to sprout.

As the new chief executive of Selangor, Azmin has the responsibility to correct this perception by giving momentum to initiatives that promote moderation, while simultaneously taking steps to curb hate speech and intolerance.

Time will tell whether the 15th menteri besar of the nation’s wealthiest state can use his statecraft to make Selangor a model of good governance, as he promises, and how far this will improve the lives of a majority who are struggling at the bottom of the heap. – September 27, 2014.

* R.B. Bhattacharjee is associate editor at The Edge.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.