Civil but servants to no masters
By Free Malaysia Today
Governments come and go but civil servants stay. Prime Ministers come and go but government servants stay. The army of workers in the service of governments is the steady hand that steer the ship of state. But civil servants are also voters. They vote based on what they think is good for the country. They do not cast their ballots as directed by the political bosses.
They do not even have to listen to the Big Chief of the ruling party breathing down hard on them. When it comes to choosing a government, they are voters first, public servants second. They owe the government of the day nothing except to ensure that if it is untrustworthy, corrupt, and rotten, it must be shown the exit.Their vote is their property. It does not belong to the government.
Strangely, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak does not see things this way or refuses to accept the new dawn. To him the 1.2-million odd civil servants in the country must forever be his vote bank. They do not have a mind of their own. If they do think, he simply cannot understand why they should choose to give their votes to the opposition and not bank them to his account. He feels this is not right. He thinks it is downright ungrateful. He believes public officials owe allegiance only to his government. By his warped logic, all who work in the government work for the party that formed the government. The party is paramount. He is wrong. In a government of the people, by the people, for the people, all who give their life to public service are the masters of their own destiny. They cannot be intimidated. Or bribed. Or swayed. Or cowed. Or browbeaten.
Najib gave a bad example when he made a pitch to civil servants. He picked the other side to make his point that a vote for the opposition is a vote for certain calamity. Sure, there was chaos in the other camp when it practised direct election for all the posts in the party. Sure, chairs flew, arms broke, limbs sprained. Sure, its image was tarnished, its competence questioned, its confidence shaken. But what the civil servants are witnessing is not a party in disarray but the birth pangs of a nascent force slowly but steadily taking solid shape. What is unfolding is history – a story of an idea whose time has come.
Civil servants know that the calm in the ruling house is superficial. It is not something to be admired or praised. There was no direct election of the top leaders. The decision to make a leader the president of his party and ultimately rule the land rested with a few. The majority of the grassroots members were mere spectators as they watched the anointed one being foisted onto them down the years, whether they liked it or not. The country too could only witness in silence and dismay as the baton was passed from one leader to another, all chosen from one ethnic group. The leadership mettle was never forged in the furnace of a direct election, with the result that we had one imperious prime minister lording over us for 20-long years and still undermining the existing political order, and another weakling who slept through all his days in power.
The growth of the civil service here coincided with the growth of the nation. Only one party stood tall and proud throughout the decades in good times and bad. It became like a father figure to all its civil children who grew up obedient, pliant, grateful, timid. For years, they unreservedly supported this benign power which could do no evil. They were ever grateful for whatever handouts they got off the palms. Prime ministers came and went but their loyalty to the governing party never wavered. To them Umno was a life-giver, the fountain of justice and wealth. No other party could match its unblemished record. Then somewhere down the road cracks appeared – the civil crowd grew restless under the thumb of the paternal ruler. The blinkers fell and the colossal figure no longer held their respect.
