By Datuk Seri Wlifred Madius Tangau
Upko President/Tuaran MP
I welcome PM Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s “Keluarga Malaysia” approach in leading the country that no religious and ethnic communities would be left out.
I also welcome him reiterating Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s invitation to opposition to join the National Recovery Council (NRC), and also the Special Committee on Covid-19.
However, I urge him to consider a Federal-State Council (FSC) on Economic Recovery and Health in place of NRC.
The FSC should be chaired by him, with the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, consisting of same numbers of key ministers and senior opposition leaders, and the MBs/CMs of all 13 states, further assisted by experts and professionals from society alongside top echelons of civil services, military and police forces.
The FSC can function like a war cabinet which makes major decisions on economy and health, while Cabinet can implement those decisions and manage other issues.
This would provide coordinated policies without blindspots and share political responsibility for any necessary but unpopular decisions across parties and governments, to protect the Federal Government from partisan potshots but without complications of a unity government.
I thank former PM Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s decision to include the state governments of Sabah and Sarawak in the NRC but the other 11 states should also be included in the decision-making.
As DS Ismail Sabri says, the whole of Malaysia is one family. We need all state governments to be included. If the exclusion of any state government hampers the effectiveness of efforts to fight Covid-19 in that state, their new cases will be added on the national total, and more resources will have to be channeled to them, support for other states will also be affected.
Malaysia’s federalism is suffocatingly over-centralised. Decentralisation in both involving the State Governments in national decisions (shared rule) and giving more room for States to make their own decisions (self-rule) is badly necessary.
DS Ismail Sabri’s Keluarga Malaysia version should include decentralisation so that state governments like grown-up children can have more says in the destiny of the whole family. This will further strengthen the ties between siblings and between them and the parent, enhancing national integration.
