POLITICAL REALITY – FOOD OF THOUGHT

Like the deserters who plagued his army, we may never resolve our problem with the politicians until we can literary shoot one of two of them. That concept, as attractive as it might seem to a few, hardly addresses the fact that in spite of campaign rhetoric, most of these elected officials are pursuing their own agenda.

They relish the power and prestige of their offices and they realize that it is much more difficult to get elected than it is to be reelected. They understand that they only work for us on a, "so so" basis.
In general, I don’t fault the politicians as much as I do the voters, but in all fairness, it is difficult to become interested now adays in our own Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) activity when we hardly ever see an acceptable result. It is true that the information we need is “out there,” but how many of us have the time or inclination to research the representatives’ record.
How many of us are inclined to write to our Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) a letter expressing our concern, or offer a viable suggestion? The answer to both questions is, “not many.” So we should not be surprised that elected officials will pursue their own agenda no matter what we think, even if we did spend the time to write letters or make telephone calls. That is the intention of "representative democracy," after all.

I believe we had given too much attention to the Parliment, and not enough are paying attention to what happens in the Dewan Undangan Negeri(DUN). As it happens, our founding fathers did intend for the Dewan Undangan Negeri to be our primary link to national politics.
Elected officials, particularly those in the Parliment, are supposed to represent our interests at the national level. They don’t. I might even suggest that with few exceptions, they cannot do that. Or they havenot done that, yet.

Party politics does not employ ‘Member of Parliament (MP)’ or ‘ADUN’ for nothing. This means that ultimately, he or she will have to show what worth he or she being elected as representative. But then again he is also representing his party as well as an individual representative. If his or her party succeed then he or she has so much to celebrate. At least, that’s how it seems to work.
Sadly, the power of the people only exists on one day every four to five years, and only then for a period of twelve hours. Once we cast our vote, our job is basically over for another five years. Overall, it isn’t very much power, is it? Maybe if “we the people” began to assert more power over our Representatives, then only we had actually gain more of our power.