How to win the bride a.k.a. the jaded voter

Try less grandstanding and mudslinging and more honesty and decency instead.

AND so the wooing begins. Campaigning has started and the suitors, a.k.a. politicians, are trying their best to win over the prospective bride and her entire family, a.k.a. the voters.

Typically, suitors will preen themselves, turn on the charm and present their best attributes and assets to impress the nervous, unsure woman. And to outdo their rivals, they may even resort to mudslinging.

That tactic has worked very well in the past but increasingly, voters are no longer innocent, naive ingenues who are easily taken in by grand gestures and promises. Rather, they have wisened up to such tactics.

What this mature citizen and seasoned voter wants to tell politicians on both sides of the divide is this: Enough. Stop your old tricks to get my attention and vote.

The tactic I am most tired of is the vilification and attempts to discredit one’s opponents. Haven’t they learned when mud is thrown, it can also fall on the one doing the slinging and similarly, when fingers are pointed, the other digits point back at the accuser?

Both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan still believe in the handsome suitor approach.

Barisan boasts that it has gotten Malaysia to move up the rankings for efficient government spending, quality education, investor attractiveness and finishing big public projects faster and below budget.

Pakatan harps on its success in attracting greater investments and claims of budget surpluses.

Fine, I can accept that. But if we take such pronouncements as a form of a report card, then the report card should also show failures and shortcomings.

That’s how I remember my school report cards. I was always worried by the red marks I got for my weak subjects because they would draw the most attention from my teacher and Dad.

In the remarks column, the teacher would always write the “need to do better” and Dad would ask why I did badly in those subjects.

The teacher would then try to pay me more attention in class and Dad would ask my older siblings to coach me too. (Tuition was too expensive in those days.)

So are our politicians honest and brave enough to fess up to their red marks; why they didn’t do so well in those areas and how they plan to do better if they get to stay in power?

As I see it, some of the red marks are for our worsening race and religious relations, our lack of progress in gender equality, unbridled development and poor environmental protection.

Conversely, there are good poli- cies and practices from both sides. But neither side is big enough to acknowledge such achievements by the other side, let alone adopt them.

An initiative that I like is the Penang and Selangor governments’ introduction of the free bus service.

Penang is about to launch its Congestion Alleviation Transport (CAT) free public stage bus service next month.

I think that’s a wonderful move and I do subscribe to the view that it is still the government’s duty to ensure efficient, affordable public transport, even if it is privatised or franchised. Would Barisan be willing to adopt this practice too?

Then there is the hugely contentious issue of the Goods and Services Tax. Barisan tells us it’s thanks to the GST that the country was also able to weather the downturn in crude oil prices.

It filled government coffers to the tune of RM44bil last year, enabling it to fund its projects and give special allowances to 1.6 million civil servants and 775,000 pensioners, of which my mum is one.

Pakatan, on the other, blames the GST for the spiralling cost of living and many small businesses going bust and has vowed to abolish the tax if it comes to power.

To me, that is an eye-rolling election promise. My response: Don’t. GST, or Value Added Tax (VAT), as it is called in some countries, is an established practice and I accept it as a broad-based consumption tax. The more you spend on goods and services, the more you pay.

Why can’t Pakatan stop the blame game and commit to improving the implementation and refund process of the tax instead? To want to abolish GST and go back to the Sales and Service Tax is simply idiotic and retrogressive.

What I also want to hear from the politicians is an iron-clad commitment to plug leakages and overspending by government agencies, as highlighted by many others.

For as long as I can remember, the annual Auditor- General’s Report reveals shocking examples of mismanagement and millions of ringgit are lost due to corruption and poor procurement.

Auditor-General Tan Sri Dr Madinah Mohamad said her 2016 report “contained findings on negligence, indiscipline, misappropriation, power abuse, corruption and misconduct among civil servants”.

As the previous A-G, Tan Sri Ambrin Buang, told The Star after his retirement in February last year, abuse, waste and mismanagement in public spending by government agencies were never in short supply throughout his 11-year tenure.

This is what he said in the interview: “At a time when people are struggling with the rising cost of living, they are angry about the mismanagement of public money.

“They know that public funds are limited compared to the ever-growing public demand for better facilities and amenities.

“Most people, especially taxpayers, will be angry to learn that so much leakages, wastages and extravagance are still happening despite constant revelations by audit.”

Spot on, Tan Sri.

These are some of the issues that matter to me. I don’t need to hear how bad the “other side” is. Barbtrading is tiresome and puerile low blows are just sickening. Don’t try to hide or deny mistakes made. Instead, tell me how you will truly govern fairly, honourably and prudently. Woo me and my fellow voters this way and you might win the bride.