Over the last 60+ years, from the time the country gained independence to the present, politicians in this country, regardless of which side of the divide, has developed a pattern of people in power helping friends and family members in ways that most would consider corrupt.
Then, after those individuals are removed from power, the opposition conducts prosecutions and jails members of the previous administration.
This has normalized the idea of a tit-for-tat dynamic, where with each power shift, beginning from 2018, retaliatory prosecutions against its predecessor, will happen.
While one might hope this cycle would encourage honesty, it instead perpetuates an ongoing issue of retributive politics on both sides, which has become particularly problematic in recent years.
Retributive politics refers to a system of governance or political strategy driven by revenge, retaliation, and the penalization of political opponents.
Rather than focusing on compromise or policy creation, it centers on settling past grievances, weaponizing state institutions to prosecute rivals, and governing through zero-sum, tit-for-tat cycles.
Were the retaliatory prosecutions driven mainly by the political woes of the sitting government particularly as a tactic to neutralize the current opposition who probably haven’t gotten over their defeat and ouster as the preceding government?
Since the 14th GE in 2018 where power shifted, politics in Malaysia were played out in tit for tat prosecutions.
This degenerated into a cyclical pattern of revenge when the government changes again in Feb 2020 and in Aug 2022 and again in Nov 2022.
Democratic reforms were pushed aside to the back burner during this period.
Even though the present government denies it, it is clear and obvious that agencies, law enforcement, and anti-corruption bodies were used to investigate and delegitimize political rivals, often eroding public trust in democratic systems.
Political messaging shifts from outlining policy platforms to appealing to a constituency's resentment, punishing perceived moral failures, or redressing historical wrongs.
Governance thus suffers as leaders dedicate significant time and resources to neutralizing threats and undoing the work of previous administrations with ordinary Malaysians growing increasingly weary of the constant conflict and retaliatory cycles, which has now led to widespread distrust and democratic backsliding.
Such retaliatory measures clearly undermine institutional stability in this country.
Any sitting government sould note that they shouldn’t be acting like a dictator and a tyrant when it is their turn at governing.
You can’t run a government through retribution.
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