Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

- US author James Bovard

COMMENT | What the recently failed half-past-six emergency declaration has demonstrated is that the Malay political establishment is in total disarray. The fact that Muhyiddin Yassin loyalists - from the diverse political parties that make up PN or whatever it is called - are calling for ceasefire and cooperation indicates that the gang from the Sheraton Move are in trouble. This means Malaysia is in trouble.

All over the world, political systems and institutions are going through the wringer because what this Covid-19 pandemic is doing is ruthlessly pointing out the flaws in systems of governance. This could have been a time of reset and a reshaping of priorities, but here in Malaysia, we continue to meander and have become numb to the antics of the political class.

DAP senator Liew Chin Tong thinks that Malaysia needs a new operating system (OS), but what he considers a new reality that requires a new OS - a divided electorate, coalition building and bipartisanship - are merely baseline features of messy democracies all over the world.

The real issue here in Malaysia is that we have never got over our original sin of race and religion. The fact that the two biggest parties, in terms of representation and voter share, cannot find common ground because both sides use race and religion (in their own ways) to gin up their respective base, indicates that this country will never move forward...