LETTER | Fair and honest critique of some political analysts

LETTER | I feel compelled to write about your latest article on Jan 9, 2021 entitled “Despite losing majority, PN Plus can continue governing for now”.

I fully accept and respect your position (and that of other media) that political analysts should be allowed to promote different viewpoints based on facts, assumptions used and their own analysis. But I find some of these analysts, both local and foreign, often use unrealistic or false assumptions for their analysis.

Therefore, you would find that most of their predictions and forecast (outcome) are proven wrong later on, but they never seem to learn and happily forget about it.

No one seems to be bothered about this. It is conveniently forgotten and these analysts are not held to account for getting their analysis and predictions wrong.

Malaysiakini or any other media for that matter, should not allow or encourage such analysts to further confuse and cloud the “already confused public” or your own readers on the two separate issues of an incumbent prime minister losing the locus standi to be a prime minister anymore (whether or not he would do the right thing is another matter altogether) and the sole prerogative of the Agong to appoint an MP to be the new prime minister whom, he believes would be able to command a majority of MPs.

Some of these analysts are now saying or implying that the king must first be convinced that a potential new prime minister (or coalition of MPs nominating him) has the support of a majority of MPs before the king can then ask incumbent prime minister (who has lost a majority of support from MPs) to step down.

This is nonsense and it's like putting a cart before the horses. When an incumbent prime minister loses a simple majority of MPs, he must resign, period. 

It is like for the 2009 Perak Political Crisis. It does not matter if there is a potential prime minister candidate waiting in the wings with a majority of MPs supporting him and the king must be convinced first of such a scenario before the prime minister resigns.

Of course, the king, if he so wishes and if the outgoing prime minster were to recommend it, has the power to call for a dissolution of Parliament and for a snap general election to be called with 60 days. But in the current pandemic situation, he is unlikely to do so.

Allowing such false narratives may further confuse or mislead your readers, many who may be scratching their head or relying on false information to understand how on earth does our parliamentary democracy really work.

Sure, Malaysiakini, or any media for that matter, should always allow the freedom of speech for any analysts to say whatever they like but the writer or editor concerned should comment on it or not use it at all if the analysts concerned are talking rubbish or saying things as though we live in “cloud cuckoo land”.

My recommendation to all media is that they should do an analysis of all local and foreign analysts over the last five years or so (say) and then rate them (say 1 to 10) according to their accuracy and predictions. 

This would be very useful information for the writers concerned before he or she interviews the analysts concerned for their views on a particular subject matter.

The writer is a corporate and political analyst on local and global issues for more than 35 years.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.