Winds of Change (1of2)

We cannot afford to have crooks or prima donnas represent us. We need those men and women of unquestionable good character to step forward and present themselves. We need to outnumber the baddies at least 2 to 1. We need to provide the average voter with a choice he or she has no trouble making.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Americk Sidhu

In my naivety I have often wondered why people choose to become politicians. It is a seemingly thankless task. Thankless because you are theoretically representing thousands of people and there is no way you can please them all. You have to deal with disgruntlement almost every day. This can be quite soul destroying, especially when your salary is not commensurate with the headaches associated with the job. A job that actually takes up 24 hours of each day, 7 days a week and no one ever says ‘thank you’. You would have to be a masochist to want to be a politician.

But people do become politicians. Few are driven by a sense of sincere altruism and a desire to be part of the guiding process that brings about necessary improvement and change for the better. Unfortunately these few are fast becoming an endangered species. They are the ones who get left behind. They are the ones who are laughed at by the rest. And because of the ‘system’ in place, they don’t last very long. If they want to survive past the next election they have to either beat the system or become part of it. It is easier to swim with the tide than against it, especially if you are a novice in this game and are awestruck by the endless possibilities that access to power delivers to your doorstep via a code of unwritten convention.

Let us look at the possible reasons why a semi decent human being gets derailed once he or she becomes a politician. This is contrast to those whose aspirations are far less than commendable a long time before they embark on the road to stardom but are nevertheless honed in to the current and relevant methodology. In other words, there are those who know exactly what they are doing and what they expect out of it.

The first reason would have to be a lack of stamina when it comes to the financial implications of being a YB. One would be forgiven for thinking an ADUN or an Ahli Parlimen would be rewarded handsomely for their efforts. This is not the case. Let’s just study the current salary scale of our elected members of Parliament.

Prime Minister : RM 22,826.56

Deputy Prime Minister: RM 18,168.50

Minister : RM 14,168.50

Deputy Minister : RM 10,847.56

MP (Dewan Rakyat) : RM 6,580.59

MP (Dewan Negara) : RM 4,112.79

Now who on earth is able to survive on these figures and yet afford to lead the type of lifestyle expected of our elected representatives? You cannot possibly be a ‘Yang Berhormat’ without a Mercedes, Lexus, BMW or a combination of all three, a home to put ‘Southfork’ to shame, Gucci suits, a wife and a couple of mistresses or a couple of wives and a mistress, apartments in London, New York and Monaco, Swiss bank accounts, children educated in expensive English boarding schools and Ivy League Universities and drinking copious quantities of ridiculously priced red wine every night.

If you didn’t do all this you would lose respect. The ordinary rakyat is expected to honour and admire an elected representative who is able to portray this air of prosperity, ill defined elegance, bad taste and excessiveness. The ordinary man in the street has been programmed to expect and accept all this without question.

How do these YBs afford all this on their miserable stipends?

This query becomes even more relevant when one considers the extra and necessary expense incurred in the handouts any elected representative is expected to dish out to members of his or her constituency who request one for a variety of reasons ranging from having to purchase school books for the kids to having to pay overdue electric bills.

There has to be a fund set aside to appease the potential voter, who, of course, has been indoctrinated to assume that his YB is a man of means and can therefore afford to pay his bills for him. This voter is playing the system. He knows he will get money if he asks for it. He knows YB cannot refuse him because YB needs his vote to perpetuate his own political existence. He knows old YB is scamming on the side so why not ask for a few bucks? After all, they are only the crumbs.

Therefore, the YB not only has to pay for his mistresses, expensive clothing, financially debilitating education fees, his BMWs, overseas property, Chateau de Rothschild Cabernet but also the everyday expenses of his constituents.

All this on RM 6,000.00 a month?