PR can work, provided…
I struggle to see how PR can ever look to run the federal government based on the ‘one bus-one driver-one fuel’ model, given their ideological differences. But if they offer the ‘tag-team’ model, then it might be an interesting proposition to consider.
Suflan Shamsuddin, The Malaysian Insider
As Zaidel Baharuddin’s The Malaysian Insider article ‘Pakatan Rakyat to Pakatan Riot’ explains, there remain unresolved doubts about how PR parties can work together to lead the country.
Surely they cannot be given the reins to rule? Or can they?
I have been a long-time sceptic of PR. But having laboured long and hard over how they might share power, I am now warming up to them.
I am beginning to sense that they might actually be viable as an alternative to BN, provided they are willing to make some fundamental changes in the way they think about power sharing.
If they can discard the conventional wisdom that applies as to how a federal government should normally operate, and build a new model suited to PR, then it might just work.
Imagine three fuels. Leaded, Unleaded and Diesel. These fuels when mixed together cannot power any car. But yet each fuel could be used to run a specific kind of car quite effectively. And this is, to me, the key to solving PR’s power-sharing impasse.
If Malaysians insist on having Malaysia governed centrally as a single unit (like riding in one big bus with one driver using one fuel), then BN remains the only option.
Pakatan Rakyat fuels cannot be used for this bus when mixed together. But what if we threw out the ‘single bus’ model and opted for a ‘tag-team model’ instead?
The tag-team model would mean that there would be separate vehicles going forward independently, but yet working together, supporting one another, even competing with each other, and united and bonded by the desire to get everyone to the same destination.
Let me elaborate.
