In Parliament, all MPs are not being addressed by their own name. Instead, they are all addressed as their constituency’s name. I believe there are reasons for that:
1. A constituency doesn't change its name, but its MP always changes over the years.
2. It is To remind the MPs that they are representing their constituency and not their coalition or party.
Sadly, after getting our votes to be a MP in Parliament, most MPs forget that they are representing the people of the constituency as their voice in Parliament. Once in Parliament, they never remember themselves as a wakil rakyat but more as a wakil party as RPK rightly put it in one of his recent articles.
If there are at least 112 MPs who really act behalf of the rakyat instead of their party or coalition in Parliament to voice out the rakyat 's wish to support a new prime minister and to break the tradition of accepting blindly the incoming Umno president as the PM, then I believe a unity government will be born automatically.
This will result in the Parliament splitting into two sides - MPs who represent the rakyat through the ruling coalition and the MPs who still think they represent their party as in the opposition coalition.
In terms of viewing it from political parties, this unity government, of course, will be a mixture of those from all the different political parties, Umno, MCA, MIC, PAS, DAP, PKR, SAPP, PPP (and so on). This unity government will be beyond what the spin doctors of the mainstream media are trying to push - a unity government created between PAS and Umno.
In these tiring times, I truly believe that a unity government which is formed by MPs who stand on the rakyat ’s side certainly is the best way forward to heal our country’s illness.
Currently, the leaders of our country are doing everything possible to remain in the corridors of power. Everything has been compromised since - the police, the MACC, the judiciary and even the constitution; all to show that they are indeed in power and will remain so by hook or by crook.
The worst thing of all is that public perception towards these supposedly independent institutions such as the MACC, judiciary, police, the civil service and the Election Commission has shifted so dramatically that it is now at the level of ‘none of them can be trusted anymore’.
With these five important institutions suffering from a bad public perception and being unable to function properly, the country automatically can be classified as ‘very ill’. In short, we can just say that our country has stopped working.
And with the current leadership being allowed to continue, the negative public perception towards these five institutions are just going to erode more and more. Sad to say, perhaps our country is the only country where the five most important person are perceived negatively.
With a unity government created by MPs who represent the rakyat, the public perception of these five institutions can easily be restored.
Assuming that this unity government is still going to be led by someone from BN (preferably also from Umno) with the majority of supporters from Pakatan Rakyat, this will automatically enable the forming of a cabinet with a majority of ministers from Pakatan - MPs that are perceived clean in the public's eye.
Indirectly, when this happen, we are able to solve one issue which is the public’s perception towards the government leadership - it returns to the positive side (remember, this cabinet is going to be formed by MPs who stand by rakyat 's side, therefore it is going to receive a lot of support from the public.)
Why must it be lead by someone from BN (preferably also from Umno)? This is because whether we like it or not, BN still controls the majority in Parliament with Umno having the biggest number of MPs in Parliament. It is also is to prevent anyone from complaining that BN has lost its power at the federal level.
Once public perception towards the government leadership is restored, the new leadership will have to remove all the heads of the supposedly independent government agencies mentioned above and replace them with people who are non-partisan.
Because of the high level of public confidence in this unity government’s leadership, whatever appointments made by the new government will receive a positive public perception. With these steps, we can successfully restore the public's confidence in the Election Commission, the police, the MACC , the judiciary and the civil service again. With this, I believe the country should be able to start working properly again.
Next, this unity government will work hand-in-hand to restore the nation’s economy before it is dissolved to pave the way for a new election. With the confidence of EC restored by then, the public will be able to accept the results of the next election confidently and the move towards a two-party system can be resumed.
That's the noble idea of the unity government raised by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. I do hope the public gets the idea of this unity government before condemning it outright. The idea is not what they read about in the mainstream media.
