00:00Welcome back to another episode of Politically Franked on Sina Daily.
00:03Today we are joined by a special guest, the Deputy Minister of High Education, Adam Ali.
00:06So are you ready?
00:08Yeah.
00:08Okay.
00:09So you were once a strict protester and now part of the government.
00:12At what moment do you truly realise how much your life and role had changed?
00:17The very moment that I realised my life and role has changed
00:21would be when I saw that what we used to preach is now up to us.
00:31It's our responsibility for us to actually realise it.
00:37And it's not necessarily bad.
00:41I feel that it's an opportunity once in a lifetime that we are now entrusted and empowered
00:47to do something about what we used to preach.
00:50So yeah, struggle does not end there anyway.
00:58So do you miss the adrenaline of the protest more than the realities of the politics in government?
01:03Sometimes, but I think it's not the protest alone.
01:11It's not the actions of it.
01:13It's not the sweats.
01:16It's what I remember and became quite a motivation would be the purpose of it.
01:22So that's what, that is exactly what I feel has left the strongest mark on me.
01:32Yeah.
01:32So whatever I do today must be based on what we used to stand for.
01:37Okay.
01:38Critics say that you are softened since entering on office and no longer on the front line.
01:43Has power changed you or has the battlefield just shifted?
01:49It's definitely a different battlefield.
01:53What used to be, you know, last time we used to wanted to be heard.
01:59So our voices must be very clear, must be very strong, must be very vocal.
02:05So this day is about getting it done.
02:08So to get something done, one of the most important thing to do, and I learned it from a lot
02:16of friends,
02:17will be that, how do you lobby your costs?
02:22How do you make sure that everybody understand and can agree with what you want to achieve?
02:30So, yeah, call it softened or whatever.
02:33I think I have to play my role here.
02:36Some netizens mock you for calling for free education before,
02:40but now enforcing like a tough measures like PT-PTN, travel ban.
02:44Have you compromised your principle or is this the reality of governing?
02:47I think I will never abandon my principles.
02:51My role would be that to make sure whatever measures that we take,
02:54whatever policies that we implement, there must be fairness to it in whichever area that we can.
03:01I mean, of course, there will be some challenge ahead of it.
03:05So there will be some, there will be disagreement here and there.
03:11But how do we strike the right balance?
03:13How do you find the ideal and how do we make sure that whatever we are implementing
03:19will be something of the, basically, to basically at the best interest of the people.
03:29Okay, maybe we'll touch on politics a bit.
03:30You warned about rational and extremist narrative about targeting youth.
03:34How should PKR encounter this narrative without sounding elitist and disconnected?
03:39I think it is very important for us to show a good example.
03:45It is very important, especially for the young politicians in PKR, in Keadilan,
03:51to show that tolerance is the key.
03:55And we have to be, you know, we have to have some humility, sincerity, honesty.
04:03We have to show that we are different so that we can convince, especially the young voters,
04:13that we can move away from the old narrative of race and religion and we can move forward together
04:22for a better Malaysia through economic reform, institutional reform, as well as a better society altogether.
04:35So, what frustrate you most about how the political system actually works?
04:41What frustrate you most about how the political system actually works?
04:45Ah, okay, that we sometimes tend to have this prolonged disagreement with each other
04:55on something that is supposedly good and have already been thoroughly discussed.
05:03We tend to make decisions sometimes based not on interests of our populations or our society
05:19but sometimes as simple as our own political ego so I don't sit very well with that and
05:29I really really hope that we can move away from this, I don't know, from this habits and this problem.
05:41If you could fix one thing in Parliament tomorrow what would it be?
05:49To have more constructive debates so that we don't waste taxpayer money as well as the time that we have
06:03in day one
06:03because it's very important for us to make sure that the day one, the Parliament, become the platform where good
06:14policies can be debated and can be made.
06:25And most importantly I think it shouldn't be a place where the Parliament has become a place where people just
06:34want to score points.
06:36So yeah that's quite bad actually.
06:40In one sentence why should young Malaysian trust any politician at all?
06:46Don't trust politicians, do not trust in politicians, trust in yourself I think.
06:57You shape the politicians that you want.
07:00I think that you should not, there is more than one sentence but basically don't simply trust politicians but shape
07:06the politicians that you want.
07:07You get to decide what kind of politician that will be there for you.
07:13Okay last question, if you were not in PKR right now what party would you be in?
07:18Oh I'll be in sekolah kot, teaching.
07:24I don't see myself in any other party.
07:33It's something that I feel if I'm not in keadilan I would rather be in you know school, teaching or
07:41in civil society as usual.
07:45Yeah.
07:46Alright.
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