Questioning the monarchy

Construction site for the new Istana Negara (© Rachel Leow)

Why do we need a new Istana? Let alone one that sits on 96.52 hectares of land, and, in these severe financial times, one that is reportedly costing the rakyat RM1.1 billion?

By Rachel Low, The Nut Graph

IF you drive down Jalan Duta in Kuala Lumpur today, along the road that runs from the Sri Hartamas housing estate to the foot of the majestic Masjid Kuala Lumpur, most of the journey will be flanked on your right by a large temporary wall. That wall girds the borders of the new Istana Negara construction site, slated for completion in 2009 or 2010.

This new Istana will house each of our nine Malaysian sultans during their five-year stints as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Something about the interminable length of the drive past that long white wall made me ask myself: Why do we need a new Istana? Let alone one that sits on 96.52 hectares of land, and, in these severe financial times, one that is reportedly costing the rakyat RM1.1 billion?

The current Istana Negara along Jalan Syed Putra (public domain / Wiki Commons)

To give you some idea of what 96.52 hectares of land is, here are some real-world expressions of the size of the new palace. One Jalan Duta Royal Istana is equivalent to 2.3 MidValley Cities, 4.9 KLCC parks, 209 Khir Toyo mansions, and 3,472 average semi-D houses (at 3,000 sq ft each). Our present Istana Negara, on Jalan Istana, is a historic building dating back to 1928, and it sits on 11 hectares of land. Our new Istana therefore represents a nine-fold increase in the amount of land that has been set aside for our Malaysian royalty.

Let’s not forget, we live in a constitutional monarchy. That means that our monarchs are accountable to us. Accountability is what I want to talk about in this article, and I want to do this by taking a short detour to modern day Britain.

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