The deep forces preventing reform in Malaysia

The Malaysian civil service is probably the most difficult barrier to overcome. There is an unspoken mission among offices and staff to protect the Malay agenda. Any policy or program is likely to be sabotaged if it is perceived to threaten Malay interests. The system has been built over the past 20 years on political nepotism, with civil servants clearly and openly aligned with the last government.

It is also a bloated service, employing nearly 1.8 million people, with duplicative ministries and agencies, wasting massive resources, built on job generation to keep ethnic Malays happy.

Although these problems have to be dealt with, retrenching staff would be politically costly. Thus it could take more than a decade to eliminate excessive numbers of employees, nepotism, and the culture of the Malay agenda.

Steep Learning Curve for New Ministers

Senior civil servants have been used to dealing with ministers who didn’t know their portfolios and were only interested in issues of personal benefit, swinging the balance of power from elected government to the bureaucracy. It is a daunting task for inexperienced ministers who don’t understand procedures and have little in-depth knowledge of their portfolios to manage their ministries.  

The Royal Families

There are nine quite diverse royal families in Malaysia, and an Agong (king) who is selected by the Conference of Rulers every five years as head of state. The respective sultans and raja primarily act as constitutional monarchs, and traditionally had a close relationship with the former government. A few members of UMNO and a former Prime Minister had royal blood, and it has long been rumored that backroom deals and concessions were given for favors done for the government of the day.

Governments traditionally kept the royalty happy through bargaining. There were only a few ripples during the 22 years of Mahathir’s previous reign, in which he passed constitutional amendments to cut royal immunity from the law and eliminate veto powers over parliamentary bills.

Royalty have on a few occasions asserted their power independently, as when the Raja of Perlis refused to accept the Barisan Nasional nomination for Chief Minister of Perlis Shahidan Kassim and appointed Md Isa Sabu after the 2008 election. Sultans have sometimes been partisan as was seen in the Perak Constitutional crisis in 2009.

Mahathir’s current spat with Johor’s crown prince over appointment of a new chief minister for the state, Malaysia’s second most populous, shows that royalty remains a potential barrier to reform, especially on matters of Malay position, religion and their own survival. Continuing to placate the royalty will be at the cost of reform.

Deep State?

Just recently Foreign Affairs Minister Daifuddin Abdullah and Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad talked about a “deep state” within Malaysia. They are referring to a network of royal family members, senior military personnel, senior police officers, GLC office holders, high ranking civil servants, politicians, intellectuals and business people who have a common interest and deep commitment in protecting the Malay position.