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Monday, July 14, 2014

Soup kitchen flop shows failure of top-down gov't


COMMENT The recent uproar over the Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor’s initial decision to shut down soup kitchens in the Kuala Lumpur escalated quickly.

His decision was met with protests on social media; prominent soup kitchen organisers such as Pertiwi and Kechara criticised the move; and Youtube videos on the important roles that these soup kitchens played went viral.

This debacle prompted the prime minister to visit a soup kitchen last week. Frequently criticised for displaying a lack of leadership, this move was refreshing and the right thing to do. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done.

Imagine an alternative scenario, where a visit to the soup kitchens and consultations with key stakeholders were done first. I’m sure a more amicable solution to this issue would’ve been found.

If there’s one lesson that Barisan Nasional can learn from this episode, it’s the importance of a consensus building approach in political decision making. In other words, when it comes to making political decisions, our politicians need to be humble and consultative.

They need to accept the reality that society is no longer content with top-down governance. With the rise of the middle class, rapid urbanization and increasingly uncontrollable flow of information through social media, the public is becoming increasingly vocal and don’t only want their voices to be heard but to matter.

Learn from Brazil

Critically, such an approach will not only prevent such episodes from reoccurring, but is also crucial if BN is serious about winning the urban vote which is slipping away.

Our politicians could do well to learn a thing or two from two fellow developing countries - our neighbours Indonesia and Brazil. They have taken notice of these changing urban dynamics and thus looked to involve communities and the public in decision making processes.

Back when current Indonesian presidential candidate Joko Widodo - or more popularly known as Jokowi - was the mayor of Solo he managed to convince a group of street vendors in Solo’s Banjarsari Park to relocate to a new market in Kithilan Semanggi. The key to this success was frequent consultations with key stakeholders.

He was able to build a consensus by holding over 50 lunch meetings with the vendors. More importantly these meetings were not one-sided and he took into account the views expressed by these vendors.

In the case of Brazil, municipal governments let their citizens make spending decisions about city budgets in a policy known as participatory budgeting, which gives the public unprecedented access to policymaking venues, public budgets and government officials.

The funding amounts represent up to 100 percent of all new capital spending projects and generally make up 3 to 15 percent of the total municipal budget.

Between 1990 and 2008, over 120 Brazilian cities adopted participatory budgeting and the results were encouraging. Spending projects were prioritised towards areas with lower incomes and fewer public services. More money was spent on education, sanitation and building health-care clinics.

Inclusive decision-making needed

With rising distrust towards our local councils - the recent KL City Council (DBKL) assessment rate hike comes to mind - and calls for local council elections ignored, perhaps these models of empowering communities can help solve urban issues.

Back home, BN can also learn from the efforts that have been made by some of its politicians. Back in 2010, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin formed the BN Youth Lab, an effort which provided youths a platform to play a part in the national policy making process by formulating policy proposals which were then presented to the prime minister.

Over a series of engagements and labs involving young voters from various backgrounds and political affiliations, the policy proposals that came out of BN Youth Lab included the repealing of the Internal Security Act (ISA), the amending of the University and University Colleges Act (AUKU) and the introduction of the minimum wage.

All of these policy solutions were implemented but perhaps more importantly, these policy proposals captured the sentiments of a majority of the public at the time.

Moving forward it’s important that this government does more of the same and it can’t be limited to specific factions within BN or specific ministries, it needs to be a new way that politics is done by everyone.

If BN is serious about winning the urban vote, it needs to start engaging the public through two-way exchanges before making political decisions.

This government says people first; it should live by that.



ADAM REZA is a member of the Umno Youth young professionals bureau.

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