By Remy Majangkim
“Democracy creates the best liars, and time gives them the practice to master the craft.”
KOTA KINABALU: In Malaysia’s political arena, longevity is rarely a testament to vision; more often, it is a monument to political survival.
With a median population age hovering around 30, the country continues to be steered by an elite class of septuagenarians and octogenarians who have spent decades perfecting the art of telling voters exactly what they want to hear.
We sit in the audience watching jesters on the national stage spew lies upon lies, yet at every opportunity, we return to the ballot box and vote the same faces into power over and over again.
For many of us, this grim reality only fully settles in when we reach our thirties.
We look back at our younger selves full of hope, lining up at polling stations, voting passionately for a better future, only to look back 30 years and realize nothing fundamentally changed.
The very same jesters who dominated the stage decades ago are still there today, mocking us to our faces and plundering national resources with a smile, showing not a single trace of remorse.
The Illusion That Time Heals All
The tragic belief that “time heals everything” does not apply to political decay.
Time does not heal structural neglect, it compounds it. Every short-sighted policy, every identity-driven distraction, and every delayed economic reform takes decades for the next generation to undo.
While the public waits for time to fix the system, the consequences of bad governance silently solidify into permanent economic handicaps.
The Disconnect Between 20th-Century Playbooks and 21st-Century Realities
The core problem of an entrenched gerontocracy is not merely physical age; it is the ossification of ideas. Malaysia’s political establishment was forged in an era dominated by industrial expansion and identity-based patronage systems.
Today, however, the global landscape is defined by rapid technological adaptation, AI integration, green energy transitions, and fierce competition for human capital.
Yet, national discourse remains stuck in recycled debate topics from the 1980s and 1990s. When modern challenges arise such as brain drain, underemployed graduates, or a stagnant tax base the response from the old guard is rarely structural reform.
Instead, it is a return to familiar theater: theatrical promises, handouts, and engineered divisions designed to secure short-term political loyalty rather than long-term stability.
The High Cost of Democracy’s Comfort Zone
Why do we keep voting for the same figures? Because democracy, in its messiest form, rewards familiar rhetoric over uncomfortable truths.
An experienced politician knows precisely which levers of fear and nostalgia to pull. A fresh policy proposal requires effort to understand; an old, emotionally charged promise takes no effort at all.
This comfort zone comes at a severe price. While neighboring regional economies pivot aggressively to capture modern supply chains and tech investments, Malaysia risks falling into an inescapable middle-income trap.
We are governed by leaders who view modern economic realities through a rearview mirror, leaving the middle-aged and youth alike to bear the financial and social tab for decisions made by those who will not live to see their long-term consequences.
Undoing the Damage
Healing Malaysia’s trajectory will not happen passively with the passage of time. It requires an active break from the cycle of political theater.
True progress demands that the electorate look past rehearsed rhetoric and hold leadership to tangible, modern metrics: educational standards, economic agility, transparent governance, and real generational succession within political parties.
Until we stop rewarding the best storytellers and start demanding competent architects for the future, we will remain caught in the same loop, watching the same performance, mocked by the same characters, and paying for their mistakes for decades to come.
