THE CICAK.com

King or prime minister, who is our head of state?

Art by CHUAN ZUI

By JOHN LEE

Not too long ago, my father dragged me on a guided tour of Putrajaya. The highlight of the tour was visiting the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), built on the highest point of the city.

Toward the end of the tour, we were taken to a conference room which, according to our guide, can house up to 52 heads of state. In the room, there was a placard indicating our prime minister’s seat.

While the tour guide explained all these details, alarm bells went off in my head. “Head of state? But… isn’t the prime minister the head of government?” I chalked it up to a mistaken tour guide, and turned to the official brochures distributed at PICC.

The brochures had to be right. There were no grammatical mistakes in them, compared to most Malaysian English literature. Isn’t that a sign of accuracy?

But surely there was a mistake in the brochure. Since when was the prime minister the head of state?

The state and the government are not the same. The state is what we commonly know as the country or the nation (although neither term is exactly accurate. In laymen terms, they are synonyms for the state). The government naturally governs the state. Malaysia is constitutionally based on the Westminster system, with its clear separation of state and government. The head of state is the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, who appoints the prime minister to head the government.

Many Malaysians tend to confuse the two. The state and the government are not the same thing. Malaysians have the right to criticise the government and the prime minister, because they owe their loyalty to the state, and not the government.

The Agong is a symbol of non-political loyalty to the nation. This is what makes Malaysia, a constitutional monarchy, unique - there is a check on political partisanship.

There is also a check on dominance and egotism under a constitutional monarchy. Being president can get to one’s head. Just take a look at all the countries where presidents have assumed dictatorial powers after winning elections.

Malaysia, however, seems to be callously forgetting the importance of our constitutional monarchy. I was extremely troubled by this when I was in Putrajaya. We are allowing our prime minister to act as president, and treating the Yang di-Pertuan Agong position as symbolic. And so Malaysians will never be able to relate to their king. In addition, the five-year rotation of the monarchy only serves to continually sever the bond between the head of state and the state he embodies and symbolises.

In a conventional constitutional monarchy, the king is a constant symbol of the state’s steadfastness - the monarch outlasts the prime minister. In Malaysia, it is the other way around! The prime minister can serve several terms, whereas the Agong can only be in power for five years.

It is therefore no surprise that the public have a closer rapport with the prime minister and see him as the symbol of their hopes and aspirations. But with that, what’s left of our Agong, who is supposed to be all this and more?

A true constitutional monarchy would have a symbiotic relationship among the people, the government, and the state (king), with all three checking and balancing each other. The present system only gives the people an incentive to identify themselves with the government instead of the state.

This puts the government in a position to lord over Malaysians as if it were the state. It then forces our king and other royalty to act as feudal rulers of old, instead of being mere subordinates to the government.

In other words, our constitutional monarchy is collapsing. And Malaysians will not reap anything positive from this detriment. We need to restore the symbiotic relationship among the people, the king and the government. And here’s how - make the Agong our ruler for life. We need to maintain a present electoral monarchy, but instead of making each term last for five years, we let it last for a lifetime. The Keeper of the Rulers’ Seal would continue conducting elections, and states with no rulers would have a regent appointed by the Agong.

I propose the term for each Agong to last for his life - he is no puppet figure nor furniture that blends into our home deco. He will stand in the forefront and represent the people. At the moment, each individual ruler has no reason to make himself stand out, and no reason to do anything other than follow the fixed order of succession. This is so as each ruler will have a chance to serve as Agong during his lifetime, God willing. If the term of each Agong lasts for a lifetime, then the individual rulers will actually have to compete to serve as Agong.

Competition will force the monarch to connect with the people. And Malaysians would then slowly, but surely, be able to identify more with the monarchy. The government would then not be so inclined to steal the limelight since they come and go, while the monarchy remains. Meanwhile, the nine rulers will all have an incentive to prove they can serve their people and act as non-political contributors to the country.

It’s a radical idea. But I think allowing the Yang di-Pertuan Agong reign for life will restore our constitutional monarchy and clarify the relationship among the people, the state and the government.

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JOHN LEE is a contributing writer for theCICAK.

John is a 16-year-old Malaysian with a passion for reading and writing about current events on the local and global scene. In his spare time, he enjoys eating anything (especially roti naan) and walking his dog. Currently an A-Level student at a local college, he hopes to pursue an economics degree in the United States. Visit his site.

CHUAN ZUI is a graphic artist for theCICAK.

Zui is almost an Otaku but hates big-chested anime characters. He is a twisted weirdo because of his islander kiasuness, a result of living his early childhood in Singapore. Zui is an artist of few words. Visit his site.