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The Johor State Assembly recently introduced a significant institutional change: legislation that will allow for 5 appointed assemblypersons to be added to the state assembly. Is this a democratic innovation or a democratic compromise? And as Johor heads into elections, what should voters instead be demanding about how their state assembly actually functions? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Aira Azhari, CEO of IDEAS Malaysia.
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00:16Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about the
00:21Johor State Assembly, which has approved amendments allowing for up to five appointed
00:26assembly persons and this as voters there are preparing to head to the polls. Now the bigger
00:33question we want to ask tonight is also whether or not Malaysia State Assemblies are currently fit
00:38for purpose or whether it's time to rethink how they operate. Joining me on the show now is Aira
00:44Azhari who is the CEO of the think tank Ideas Malaysia. Aira, I know Ideas has been doing quite
00:50a lot of work on state assemblies and strengthening democracy at that level. So when Ideas evaluate
00:56state assemblies, what indicators are you looking out for? What indicators tell you whether one is
01:02functioning well? Hi Mel, so when it comes to state assemblies, those indicators actually they don't
01:11differ much from the federal parliament. So I would say firstly the presence and the effectiveness of
01:21committees is also is one thing that's really important. So if you look at our federal parliament,
01:29right now we have 10 parliamentary select committees and each of them I think sort of shadow
01:38a few ministries and for the Public Accounts Committee, the PAC is a permanent committee so it's always there
01:47no matter whatever government comes into power, the chair is always a member of the opposition.
01:53So if you look at the state assemblies, the committee system is not as institutionalized and it's not as
02:02effective as it is at the parliament level. So states like Selangor for example has the committee system is a
02:13bit
02:13more sophisticated. They do have certain they do have certain rules in place where opposition members have
02:22to be chairs of certain committees but in other states we don't really see this at all and the committee
02:30system
02:31is not as institutionalized. So why is this a problem? It is a problem because a lot of the issues
02:41that
02:42ADUNs are supposed to discuss and debate on, they can't really do all of that during the day one session
02:54when it's sitting all together right. So that's why a lot of these details about all of these the little
03:04the little details on the specific policies actually should be brought to committee level so that
03:11the adults can then sit down and deliberate on them better. So this doesn't this system doesn't really
03:19exist uh in a very meaningful way in many states and secondly uh the number of days that our state
03:27assembly sits uh is actually very very very low so from ideas report um the last time we tracked this
03:35was
03:352023 um the data that we have was from 2023 and the highest number of days at the time was
03:44Selangor at
03:4521 days in a year yeah so um the lowest number i think is only about five to seven days
03:53uh in a whole
03:54year so the state assemblies themselves do not sit even for a very long time so they have to pass
04:02the
04:02budget every year around October November around the same time the federal parliament sits for the budget
04:08um so what what sometimes happens in certain states is that they will just sit to pass the budget and
04:15then that's it right so uh this is another indicator of how much improvement is needed uh at the state
04:25assembly level that um maybe many Malaysians miss because uh the spotlight i think especially when it comes to
04:32the media is not always so um so concentrated to the state assemblies we're always very obsessed about
04:39politics at the federal level yeah i i i agree that there is a way more attention on parliament and
04:47day one rakyat than on state assemblies can i ask you ira why do state assemblies meet so briefly each
04:53year
04:54why do they sit for such so few days yeah that's a great question that we ask ourselves and you
05:01know in
05:01in our work we do ask uh when we meet with um the uh lawmakers or uh the speaker at
05:10the state level
05:11we do ask um so i i don't think there is a a concrete answer to this other than um
05:21the fact that states in
05:24malaysia uh just generally uh do not have uh very large uh areas of responsibility so for example uh
05:34malaysia even though malaysia is a federation uh we are a very centralized federation so um
05:41like if you see other federations in the world uh like uh canada or australia for example um things like
05:50education healthcare is something that this under the state level so each state has their own um
05:59health education department that determines uh like staffing and and and even salaries and how
06:06the uh system functions and works right but in malaysia all of that is controlled at the federal
06:12level and also states in malaysia do not have much um uh room or or much uh yeah much room
06:23to raise
06:24revenue so uh our state does our states do not collect a lot of uh taxes so like things like
06:32like your uh sst right uh that we the consumption taxes all of that is collected at the federal level
06:40um so uh state does collect things like quit rent and and and all of that but it's still it's
06:47very the
06:47quantum is not very big it's still quite small so a state a lot of states rely quite heavily on
06:54the
06:54federal government for um revenue for money for them to to to do things lah in the state so
07:02um going back to my earlier point uh this is some of the reasons that are given to us lah
07:08when we ask
07:09why is it that uh states uh state assemblies do not meet for a long time because then they'll say
07:16oh actually there's not much that we do anyway but i disagree because um even with the uh limited
07:25limited amount of things that you can do as a state government um there's still a lot within that
07:32uh that needs to be scrutinized and be held accountable and uh i mean we have states that are
07:39very that contribute a lot of money to malaysia's economy right selangor for example a state like
07:46joho uh penang i imagine would also um generate a lot of uh money for for the country so um
07:56who's uh
07:57scrutinizing this and keeping this accountable uh there's still there is a lot that can be done
08:03actually at this at the state assembly level so it's quite worrying that they are only sitting um
08:10for uh the maximum like 21 days well five to seven days is quite shocking i i must say
08:17i wrote so let's let's zoom in on joho because they're heading to the polls um and i wanted to
08:22ask you what you make of joho passing this legislation in their state assembly that will allow for
08:28up to five appointed so non-elected assembly persons to be added well uh what what did you make of
08:34that
08:35development yeah um i guess the golden question is uh what are what is this lantikan for right so um
08:47if the intention is to introduce more diversity into the state assembly so for like right now for example
08:57you have a state like terengganu where um it's uh all like it's like 32 32 zero where all of
09:06the
09:06aduns come from one party uh then maybe you do need measures like this to uh introduce not only the
09:15diversity element but also the accountability element right so it's it's not healthy if uh the state
09:22government is just made out of one party um so if that's the intention uh perhaps this adun lantikan
09:31system can help um but like many things in malaysia there's there's always a fear that a system like
09:40this uh can be uh misused by uh those who are in power so especially in today's political climate i
09:51think
09:51where uh the uh the balance uh the numbers in the the state assembly um actually they could be quite
10:01close right so for example in in a state like joho uh after this next uh state election uh if
10:09the numbers
10:10are close between government opposition between bn and ph um is this adun lantikan system going to be used
10:18to um tilt the balance uh a bit to one side or the other uh that's that's really the fear
10:26i think that
10:27we have um and that's that's number one secondly the other thing that tends to happen uh in malaysia is
10:35that um we'll need to uh reward those who lose during the elections right so uh another fear is that
10:45this uh
10:46uh lantikan system uh might be used uh to uh to compensate for candidates who lost during the
10:55election of course um theoretically that's not uh that's not the rationale behind uh the passing of this
11:05um policy at the state assembly uh but who is going to uh play that check and balance role when
11:14the
11:15decision is going to be made so that's my fear so we do need to be uh quite careful and
11:20keep an eye
11:21out on uh on this because uh we do not want all of the above to happen yeah i read
11:26we we only have
11:27a couple minutes left but i really do want to ask you what your message is to johor voters right
11:32they're about to elect a new state assembly but beyond i guess the question of which party they should
11:38choose which candidate they should choose what is it that you would like given the work that you do in
11:42this area what is it that you would like voters to think about to demand from their state representatives
11:49about how their state assembly actually functions for them the voter so um i would say that uh johorians
11:58or johor voters uh should um put pressure on their uh state assembly persons to push for
12:07uh a state assembly that really really functions in terms of accountability and check and balance on
12:14the executive so that's really important because um at the state level actually a lot of the decisions
12:23that are made by our state government actually impacts our lives sometimes maybe more than those that our
12:30can peacemake at the federal level because uh they're just closer to us right the the uh the things that
12:37the state government controls uh actually plays a big role in our lives and you have to remember that
12:44even the like the appointment of um city councilors uh does depend on uh a lot on the composition of
12:55the state
12:55government uh who is the adun in in that kawasan um it does trickle down you know to the people
13:02so uh
13:03it's really important uh in i think when it comes to federal politics uh the media and many cso's have
13:10played a great role in keeping that check and balance uh that check and balance system but at the state
13:17level
13:18um i think it's still that that's still lacking so as a voter you have that power so uh please
13:25use it
13:25and uh ask for uh a more well-functioning state assembly wonderful ira thank you so much for joining me
13:32on
13:32the show today ira azhari the ceo of ideas malaysia wrapping up this episode of consider this
13:37i'm melissa idris signing off for the evening thank you so much for watching and good night
13:54you
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