Limiting A Pm S Term In Power The Way To Go

---

 


I believe that it would be a big and bold move for the current government to amend the Constitution and limit the prime minister’s term to 10 years.
At the moment, there is no limit, and the longest serving prime minister in Malaysia has been, as most people would know, Dr Mahathir Mohamed, who has served as the nation’s top leader for a staggering cumulative 24 years.
Roughly about a week ago, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he instructed the cabinet to study limiting the tenure of the prime minister to two terms only.
This has always been one of the promises of the Pakatan Harapan coalition for many years, and it looks like it could be something that will become a reality in the near future.
Doing so is something that would be considered quite progressive for the Malaysian government, not only for this country, but for the world, because according to the World Population Review, term limits are rare for prime ministers and more common for presidents.
Only four of 73 countries with prime ministers limit the terms, as compared to 114 of 146 countries with presidents who have term limits.
Preventing power abuse, corruption
I think many people would agree that limiting the term of an elected government leader is a good way to prevent abuse of power.
It is quite obvious that if an individual who is in a high office spends a long time in that position, he or she can get pretty comfortable, which could lead to a risk of them seeing different loopholes and opportunities to take advantage of their position.
Now this is not to say that every individual would be abusing their power if they had a chance, but we just have to be realistic in curbing and avoiding it from ever happening.
We have to remember that in a democratic system, the institutions need to be bigger than the individual in order for it to work smoothly, efficiently, and fairly. So it would not matter what happens, the system will prevail.
I also find some of the reasons given by the critics of this amendment to be quite ridiculous. For example, PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang mentioned that limiting the term of the prime minister is going against God’s will. He and his party colleagues say that good and bad deeds are not tied to a time period but by a person’s principles and beliefs.
PAS president Abdul Hadi AwangThey are also saying that it is more of a priority to amend the Constitution so that the prime minister must be a Malay Muslim.
I think they are just contradicting themselves because if good and bad deeds are tied to a person’s principles and beliefs, then it shouldn’t be tied to a person’s religion or race either, because we know for a fact that people who do bad deeds can be from any race or religion.
Let the people decide
I think it goes without saying that the PAS leaders are just making statements like this for the sake of it and also to rile up racial and religious sentiments.
So it would be best if we just ignore their statements because it contributes nothing to the actual logical discussion about limiting the tenure of the country’s prime minister. They provide no arguments to show a matured siding on the issue.
One can also argue that the issue of the prime minister’s race and religion really doesn’t matter because throughout history, all our prime ministers have been Malay Muslims, and since Malay Muslims are the majority in Malaysia, this rightfully reflects that.
However, if and when the people feel that a non-Malay and non-Muslim is to be the prime minister, there should be no problem with it if decided by the people.
With all this being said and done, for Anwar and his administration to do what they say they plan to do, it would require a two-thirds vote in Parliament. Although there is some push back from the opposition, Anwar’s coalition government right now does form a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
So if it does eventually come to a vote, I don’t see how it won’t actually go through. So let’s hope it does. - Mkini
ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

---