After the Debate – Where do we go from here?

As a lot of commentators rightly pointed out immediately after, last night’s debate between Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek created history in that:

1. Two highly polarized political camps can debate on a contentious issue in front of a reasonably intelligible audience and the entire nation without resorting to brickbats and name-calling,

2. The mass media can be used as a positive and productive platform for differing parties to put forward their point of views, supported of course, with facts and figures, and

3. The Malaysian public are matured enough to listen to political leaders present their case and make informed decisions, again, based on facts and figures.

I was, however, not very pleased to hear a few things coming from our learned information minister:

1. He couldn’t resist the temptation to speak about events and stories of old related to Anwar while the fact was, they were debating the current high fuel pump price. At least, on two or three occasions he mentioned Anwar and 1974. May be that was his strategy to put Anwar in a bad light. But, Dear Information Minister, things change, people move on. Why harped on “grandfather stories”, unless you didn’t have much data to support your argument. Kudos to Anwar for restraining himself from playing the same old and dirty game of tarnishing the messenger for the message,

2. He had to resort to the old politician’s trick of dodging the question when he couldn’t answer it. When one of the two-member panel posted him a question, the minister managed to use up his entire allotted time NOT to answer the question, to the exasperation of the person asking the question. I’m trying to get the full transcript of the debate to see the number of occasions our information minister did this,

3. Given the access of information available on PETRONAS and the automatic pricing mechanism that governs the fuel subsidy, the minister couldn’t rattle off the relevant figures to counter Anwar’s points. For example, he couldn’t properly quote the breakdown of PETRONAS income stream, whether from domestic sales, export, or international business. Until today the majority of Malaysians do not understand the APM and how it relates to the price we pay at the pump. I thought it’s the job of the information minister to inform the taxpayers about information we need to know, and

4. Again, he had to resort to a “grandfather story” to discredit Anwar. This time about Tenaga National Berhad’s agreements with the Independent Power Producers back in the 1990s. He conveniently assigned the blame on Anwar for being the finance minister and the deputy prime minister, during which time the agreements took place. The fact that the Economic Planning Unit (which was directly under the instruction of the Prime Minister’s office) called all the shots on privatisation projects in Malaysia at that time was conveniently forgotten by our information minister.

Anwar brought up a number of interesting points, which I thought, was supported by some data. These need to be elaborated further if we are serious about looking objectively at the country’s challenges:

1. Why can’t the government use RM 1 billion out of the RM 6 billion special dividend PETRONAS is paying to the government this year. He wasn’t asking for additional payout from PETRONAS (which Ahmad Shabery kept saying he was)?

2. Can the government give an accounting of how much is “leaking” through cracks in the system, where these leaks are, and who are responsible for them? The cancelled double-tracking rail projects? The cancelled crooked bridge to Singapore? Amounts paid to tolled highway operators for not increasing the tolls? We all know there are a lot others. How much of these leaks can instead be used to lower the fuel pump price?

3. Our competitiveness as a country, compared to the other developing nations? Anwar mentioned countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand (again, the full transcript of the debate would help here). Some of these countries were on par with us in some areas at one time. While we are moving regressively (e.g. the auto industry), others are moving ahead by leaps and bounds (e.g. Thailand and Korea).

While the debate was a healthy dose of progress in the current political landscape, it only whets the appetite. It remains to be seen if the government has the courage to continue with such programs where parties of differing opinions can present their case using facts and figures, not based on half-truths and attacks on personalities. I believe Malaysians are mature enough to make informed decisions based on facts presented.