COMMENT | To say that Malaysians are frustrated by never-ending political shenanigans is, quite frankly, an understatement.

To have only voted once and yet have four different prime ministers in four years is exhausting at the best of times. The fact that it happened mostly during a very deadly pandemic - and the concomitant social and economic crises – is simply tragic.

There is no doubt that Malaysians suffered more from Covid-19 because of our politics, be it the initial distractions of the Sheraton Move, the fragility of the government’s majority giving rise to sub-optimal appointments to important positions, the perceived double standards on enforcement of movement control order rules, or the Sabah political crisis that necessitated a state election.

And quite unbelievably, we are staring at the likelihood of another state election in Malacca soon. If all this isn’t enough, then we can also bring in the fact that we had a period of emergency rule during which the pandemic just seemed to get worse.

We are the only country, to my knowledge, to have had a suspension of our liberal democracy as a means of better handling of the pandemic.

When I first heard the announcement I felt queasy: I didn’t expect anything to change per se but just the idea that we were being ruled by decree and that parliamentary oversight over the executive was gone brought discomfort.

I was immensely relieved when emergency rule ended; as Winston Churchill once said, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all others that have been tried”. I subscribe to that view.

It is, however, a view that has been losing popularity in recent times. The 2017 Pew survey of 38 countries reported that 52 percent of respondents were not satisfied with the way democracy was working in their countries, with a substantial number willing to consider non-democratic alternatives even...