Meritocracy not aristocracy is needed in GLCs

Murray Hunter


Meritocracy not aristocracy is needed in GLCs

Politicians distain for academics and professionals outside their enclave

Oct 22, 2024





The recent appointment of former prime minister and jailed Najib Razak’s daughter Nooryana Najwa to the board of Matrade and the earlier appointment of prime minister Anwar Ibrahim’s daughter Nurul Izzah as an economic advisor to the finance ministry highlights the issue of nepotism in high places.

When the news came out 6 weeks after Nurul was appointed, cybertroopers and the media played up her qualifications for the job. Similarly, with Nooryana’s appointment, the message was the country needs her.

The facts are these two are not as qualified as other potential candidates. It strongly appears they were both awarded jobs because of the families they come from. That’s really third worldish.

If you go through all the GLC appointments, most are political hacks, favours returned, all being members or close acquaintances of the inbred Malay aristocracy. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Zaliha Mustafa was a staffer for Wan Azziah Wan Ismail, and education minister Fadhlina Sidek’s father was a close friend of Anwar. That’s what you get from the inbred aristocracy.

Passed over are academics, lawyers, finance experts, engineers, former civil servants, and ex-judges, who might have a wealth of experience, expertise, and wisdom. Non-partisan independent people are a product of meritocracy, and totally scarce from Malaysia’s GLC scene.

In Malaysia, meritocracy has gone out of the window. The apartheid social model the government has created has destroyed possibilities of getting the best person in the right job. Class-feudalism prevents any talented Malay from being considered for any top job, unless they have greased the cables. Go to the rural boondocks of Kedah and Perlis and ask them, if they agree.

There is just no ethnic or class diversity, just nepotism and cronies.

Politicians have so much distain and disrespect for the nation’s academics. They are treated as performing clowns, where their expertise or advice is not wanted. Very rarely are any academics called in to advice the government. Malaysia’s academics are not even allowed much academic freedom, and awas (danger) for them if they have any courage to criticise anything the government plans or does. Malaysian academics are expected to be performing seals, clapping on the government. There are big rewards out there for that.

Just look at the state of the Majlis Professor in Malaysia. It’s a cesspool of corruption. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigated them after the Auditor Generals report for playing with their stipends and allowances. No dignity and no ethics, that has tainted all professors in Malaysia.

Malaysia is one of the only countries in the world that doesn’t utilise its academics and professionals in government. The US Presidential cabinet is full of them. US professors like Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Porter, and Richard Florida are household names around the world.

There are no such people domiciled in Malaysia who go even near that level. Its not that some don’t have the expertise and knowledge. In Malaysia, if you show any brilliance, they will kick you down and kick you out.

All these places are reserved for the aristocracy, a sign of neo-colonialism. If you think that I am exaggerating, just go and ask anyone from Sabah or Sarawak.

The once proclaimed leader of reformasi, Anwar Ibrahim has shown himself to be a custodian of the aristocracy. Anwar works better with UMNO, than the DAP. The emperor has no clothes, but no one is willing to call this out within the DAP.

Malaysia needs champions of the establishment to maintain life, as the aristocracy knows it.

Malaysia’s tragedy is that very few people can rise from the bottom to the top. No way could they ever dream of holding any GLC post under Anwar’s watch.

That’s why Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that Malaysia has a first world infrastructure, but third world mentality.

The cost to Malaysia in what I have written above is the mass exodus of Malaysia’s finest, in search of real opportunity in meritocratic environments. Its not just the non-Malays who are running.