NOVEMBER 10 — Nine days to polling day, and the obvious pops up, who promises better?

Since those manifesto PDFs infest social media in parts, rephrased or whole.

We assess the text, not delivery at the present. A bit like being in a showroom to use the company car rebate before it expires in nine days. Rue the decision later, or not.

Not the best analogy but this begins somewhere.

The manifestos have been dry and delivered mostly without context but thick with rewards. More of a credit card points redemption brochure than a document to shape our lives as a nation. Fortunate or unfortunate, one of the dudes has to win.

We put together some qualitative considerations as you peek through the rewards catalogue, sorry, policy blueprint. Just to colour the discussions at your homes with our tint.

Subsidies and cash handouts

The subsidy bill hits RM80 billion this year, and in 2023 is likely quarter of the Budget. When the finance minister spoke for more than two hours to deliver his stillborn Budget — subject to revival if BN wins — he barely justified it. He’s not the first.

Eyes on oil prices, the war in Ukraine and the US dollar exchange rate as the wrong set of shifts can monumentally shift the subsidy burden and drown most of the "other” promises in the manifesto.

Yet, all three coalitions skipped the elephant in the room. It’s too hard to mount.

They speak of targeted subsidies but nothing seems realistic. My local supermarket reminds customers they are entitled to only 1 litre cooking oil in plastic bags. While my locals settle for more trips, smugglers continue to bring our premium subsidised good — petrol — out of the country.

Currently Malaysia sustains subsidies simultaneously with B40 cash handouts.

No one envies the government's long-term objective to get rid of subsidies but income inequalities dictate these subsidies' longevity. They risk electoral defeat if they soldier on blindly about how short-term subsidy elimination shocks eventually stabilise. They do, but by then the other guy is in charge.

Cash handouts are the fairest way to protect the weakest without a huge bill and avoids abuse. But how to do it?

Housing

Home ownership for most Malaysians is a pipe dream.

Malaysians earn too little or homes are too expensive.

The land in exchange for affordable home schemes have fallen short. An actual White Paper or public hearing with all the stakeholders is long overdue.

Solving this via grievances and hoisting knight in silver armour moments — usually a mentri besar handing over a house to deserving family — hide the underlying core problem.

Public-private partnership is not yielding enough houses at the right prices.

The developers, unions, council planners and civil society with government and Opposition members have to work out an equitable plan which matches aspirations. If there is no solution, then the government has a bigger problem than first intended.

Government’s role is to facilitate, not strongarm stakeholders. But how?

Education restart

Pakatan touched on the need for student reassessment from Covid-19 enforced two years of home based learning. Assist those who need to catch up.

But in a country with automatic promotion and poorly trained teachers, the problem to correct may be completely cosmetic. And the Pakatan manifesto lacks bite to suggest efficacy.

They might want to look back to grade adjustments and promotions adopted at the end of World War Two when schoolchildren missed almost four years of classes.

If not tackled well, it'll be bound to haunt Malaysia in the coming decades.

GST

Things have to be paid for.

Pakatan loses its tongue when it comes to this since they shaped their victory four years ago through opposition to the GST. All sensible heads with knowledge of our finances agree to reinstate the GST in stages.

It widens the tax base. The arguments on what are necessities and luxuries can carry on, but the core argument has to be recognised by parties. Whether they are for it or not. Gibberish rhetoric about introducing GST when people can pay comfortably for it misses the point.

Taxes are a burden and Malaysia needs to collect more to fulfil all promises, whether from Pakatan, BN or PN.

Taxes are by definition burdens. Politicians must not pretend they do not exist for 80 per cent of the population.

Jobs, foreign workers, brain drain and dignity

Are we the Middle East or the next Singapore, or just a bit of both?

Foreign workers and how they fit into our economy is a massive discussion long overdue.

No one leads it. It is always about respecting our export manufacturers or restaurateurs, or the other extreme to espouse hatred towards migrants.

Singapore is far more attractive but is better regulated in terms of workers — who and how many get in or not. Malaysia is less attractive but far more porous. Still, regulations are within state hands and employers cannot operate above the law if the rules are applied diligently.

There are structural problems which foster our brain-drain, not the least our affirmative action policies. But be mindful, as the years pass it would be more about pulls from abroad rather than local rejections which makes Malaysians wave goodbye to Malaysia. Though, part of that wider conversation is quality of life which revolves around privacy, liberal norms and modernity.

The challenge to determine how many skilled and unskilled workers to absorb, liaise with businesses to prioritise local workforce and reposition Malaysia as a haven for promising digital nomads rather than just highly successful ones are just a few of the many challenges.

Government agencies require rejigs to cope and drive fresher think to migration and even to the fringes of revolution.

Healthcare and aging

We live longer, so we cost more to aid. The demographic rises with time.

There were mentions to support more aged care. But none spoke about local government’s role to build communities which absorb agedness in its fabric rather than look at it as a financial proposition only. Are our parks filled with older people? From access, security and facilities, that’s the start point to engage.

Is our healthcare rightsized? There is always emphasis on facilities, new facilities and speedier treatment lines, but how about things like ratio of non-medical staff on payroll to medical professionals?

One cleans wounds and cuts out cancer, the other fills forms between conversations at counters in an increasingly automated world. The cynic might suggest it keeps more jobs by prolonging the treatment process at the patients' disadvantage.

East-west parity [Harmony across the South China Sea]

To death mentions of Borneo deputy prime ministers. Those in the Kota Belud region who buy mineral water to bathe their children do not intend to dance on plastic bottles to celebrate the possibility of an indifferent DPM much closer to Kota Belud.

They have bread and butter issues. Those are resolvable with federal funding.

Spending is the surest way to build confidence in East-West union. Sabah and Sarawak might be only 20 per cent of the country in population but they remain 70 per cent of the country in physical land. To politicians, they are 26 per cent of Dewan Rakyat.

The respect for MA63 notwithstanding it will come down to a substantially higher financial commitment to ensure the east catches up in a generation.

Wonder if the federal government can disaggregate the Budget outline of what stays west and what goes east so Malaysians can possess a transparent view of what they pay for?

Deregulation of development via local mandate

Our towns are dying.

There is a disproportionate number of developments when more urgent is the redevelopment of vacant spaces.

Much of this is associated with local councils disassociated with their locality. They are government representatives rather than employees of the council ratepayers.

The whole of yesterday, after RapidKL’s LRT trains for 16 stops suspended with no resolution for seven days, Kuala Lumpur City Hall has been quiet. City Hall barely sweats about the thousands from Suria KLCC set to wait by Jalan Ampang evenings for missing buses.

The bureaucrats at Jalan Raja Laut are quiet because they get their salary from Putrajaya and therefore devote themselves to their agenda and not of city dwellers.

Local interest and planning is strangulated by Putrajaya, and misguides development.

There are swathes of local districts without a local direction for their own survival. Like in Perak. They surrendered to the Perak government, who then surrendered to Putrajaya. All things top down.

So, while Malay right wingers acquiesce to anti-democrats in charge of Putrajaya’s preference for no local elections to prevent Chinese domination of city councils, they end up spitting themselves. Their cities are indifferent to them because there is no local election.

Good luck, Malaysians

If the parties and coalitions bore you, talking about their blueprints with family and friends is the least we can do in our democratic zeal.

It inevitably causes more to talk about process and implementation rather than rely on the outdated notion elections are about what the rakyat can collect, every five years.

This is an unusual election.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.