How much are we willing to forgive our politicians? - Kuo Yong Kooi

There are numerous examples we can draw from overseas on the degree of the peoples' forgiveness for the wrongdoings of their nation's politicians.

The extreme ones are from Libya and Iraq and the kinder and gentler ones from South Africa and East Timor.

It varies from culture to culture and the extremes of the peoples' reaction also depends on the degree of suffering their leaders have inflicted upon them.

These contemporary international political lessons should be a guide to our current leaders who are keen to hang on to power at all costs, for their personal interest rather than for the national interest.

It's easy enough to conclude that the harder you suppress the people the stronger the reaction will be.

Take an example; the current Syrian political development will undoubtedly make us conclude its leader Bashar Al-Assad is at point of no return.

If he is to survive after the fall of his regime he needs to be flown off to a safe haven somewhere or else his fate will be the same as the late general Muammar Al-Gaddafi.

So how far are we willing to forgive our nation's leaders? I think we have a very high degree of tolerance and forgiveness to our leaders' wrongdoings and miscalculations, given the complexity of our mixed cultures that have different interpretations on forgiveness.

We are doing well because post Bersih 3.0 tells us that we are not as unforgiving as Libya and Egypt.

Our anger seemed to be not that intense compared to the Arab Spring, where people continuously had days and weeks of street confrontations with the police or the military.

The time gap between Bersih 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 indicated to us that there was ample time given to the Umno administration, the Election Commission and the police to rectify their mistakes.

Unfortunately time and time again they failed us and yet the rakyat is not raging mad occupying the streets disrupting the daily commerce activities.

If the Bersih steering committee wanted to disrupt the day to day running of the government, all they need is to formally urge the rakyat to occupy Dataran Merdeka tomorrow through the alternative new media and you can guarantee that tens of thousands of people will be out there before the police have a chance to barricade the area.

The Najib/Umno administration must count their lucky stars that this possible scenario has not happened yet.

Are they still oblivious to this fact? or are they taking the advantage of the rakyat's kindness for granted? Or are they just plain arrogant, behaving like in the old days of Umno not realising that technological development in the virtual world has changed the way the game is played.

The other indicator that Malaysians are a very forgiving bunch is that the number of "frog" politicians that hopped in and out of the opposition's camp is phenomenal.

There are no signs of public disgruntlement on this phenomenon through street protests or other activities like setting up burger stalls or doing butt exercises in front of the houses of those "frog" politicians.

This is an indication that the bulk of Malaysians are very civilised in their behavior and very forgiving.

The "frog" politicians are easily accepted and welcomed into the opposition camp without any requirement of proof on their sincerity and ideological compatibility with the opposition parties policies.

One may wonder whether the whole political posturing in Malaysia has any ideological foundations at all.

PAS is considered to be an ideological party, they even accept "frog" politicians readily.

Is it just opportunistic politicians at play or is it a case that Malaysian voters are very forgiving? or maybe racial politics is still at large here?,

As for the ‘King of frogs' Ibrahim Ali, he got elected into the Parliament hopping from Umno to PAS, then to PKR and then now he is an independent.

For those who had made their great leap from Umno to the opposition, they have had ample time to prove their sincerity in their time in the opposition.

Blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin has interestingly dug out some cases of alleged wrongdoings by Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali when they were in Umno in his articles ‘MACC deep throat comes out of the closet' and ‘Anti-deception buster' and a few more.

I can't help but to conclude that most Malaysians are happy to forgive their past misdeeds as long as they stay on course to change the present government.

I believe it is in the nature of the human mind that when we are presented with a revelation or a fact, we evaluate the facts in the context of the present predicament we are in.

But sometimes we make an emotional reaction with the hope that our conclusion or position can get us out of that present predicament.

This act does fit the label of being in denial or having double standards.

It could also possibly mean that we are desperately wishing for our present suffering to pass, and we rather turn the page and start again, so to speak.

The current Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge commander.

When he became the prime minister of Cambodia, alarm bells were ringing in the people's mind, it did initially remind them of the days of the killing fields under the Khmer Rouge.

However that fear of returning to the days of the killing fields did not eventuate.

Cambodia took that chance and has moved on compared to Malaysia which is still stuck.

Malaysia do not have Noble Laureate leaders like Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama.

We will be stuck if we wait for one and not stay focused in just getting over the first hurdle of changing the current government first.

Once the government is changed then all other aspirations will follow.

There was ample time given to Najib to prove that he is Malaysia's FW De Klerk or a Gobachev.

Time and time again he has shown us that he'd rather defend Putrajaya till the last drop of Umno's blood, so we have to turn our hope to the opposition.

The first hurdle of a peaceful transition of government supersedes all other possibilities because without that, dreaming of a possible non Malay prime minister is purely academic and only a dream.

It is very clear that only after the change of government then there is hope that the judiciary, MACC, police and many other public institutions, will evolve into a more independent institution free from influence of politicians.

So how much forgiveness are you willing to give to our politicians? Where do you draw the line in terms of the time frame in which you can forgive them?