GE13: Stepping down gracefully

GE13: Stepping down gracefully

WHY NOT?
By WONG SAI WAN

Moving aside for someone younger is no shame, but is in fact a testament of one’s ability to ensure continuity.

THE 13th general election will soon be upon us and besides being a contest between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat, it is also a time of renewal as those who have served for a long time should make way for fresh faces.

This does not mean that there is no place for the old or that only the young can play an important role in politics. But an election is a time when leaders can be replaced or, better still, give way.

While political parties may preach about the need to change governments, the truth is that fresh politicians need to come in to give fresh ideas because there are quite a number of the old ones who have been around since the time of independence.

Just imagine that you are at one of the many ceramahs that will take place in the next month and this elderly politician who is contesting his sixth or seventh general election preaches on the stage about new ideas and changes.

How credible is that? What new idea can he be talking about as he has been around in office for the past 40 years?

There are, of course, some exceptions but in this modern fast digital age, there will be very few politicians in their late 60s or 70s who can claim to be relevant.

Just because they know how to use Twitter or handle a Facebook account does not mean they have new ideas. After all, many primary school children also can tweet and are very apt at Facebooking.

The trouble is many old politicians “kill off” their potential successors so that they can stay on for a long time.

As a general rule, I feel that anyone who was born during or before the Second World War should step down and give way to someone younger.

Most of those in their 30s do not have an inkling of what WW2 was about nor do they want to hear about how poor everyone was in those days or how much freer the people were back then.

Those who have served in the same position for a long time should also give way to others so that they will have an opportunity to also contribute. Who knows, they may have better ways of doing things.

Barisan chief Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak stressed on these points when he met with the incumbent members of parliament and state assemblymen as well as thousands of division leaders on Wednesday. He supposedly told them that many of them had to go and he told them why.

But the stronger message that he was trying to impress upon the incumbents who were not chosen to re-contest is that they must not only support his choice of their replacement but they should also do so gracefully.

As he put it, it’s okay for them to sulk, “but only for 24 hours”, after which they should move on and help out with the campaigning.

This is true not only in politics but also in the academic and business world.

Nothing is sadder than an old person who occupies a seat way beyond his welcome, especially when there are many young capable leaders waiting in the wings to succeed him.

If the older person knows when to go, he or she will be remembered fondly but one who has to be forced to go will be forgotten the moment he is thrown out of the door.

Worse still will be the one who tries to fight back by sabotaging the person chosen to succeed him. In the business world, many such old fogeys join an opposing firm in the hope of bringing down the very same company they spent years building up.

In politics, the old politician either jumps into the opposing party or, worse, tries to make sure the younger person loses in the elections so that he can stage a future comeback.

In reality, after the damage has been done, the older person will find little joy in his sabotage and will lose whatever good name he still had to the label of being a traitor.

Such sabotage contributed to the poor showing of Barisan in 2008. There were other factors that brought about the tsunami but many incumbents who were dropped blatantly hurt the ruling coalition.

There are several elderly ones in Barisan who have not only overstayed their time but are obviously unpopular with the younger set. Some of them are ministers or ex-ministers. In cricket terms, they have had good innings and must now retire.

However, the old fogeys are not only found in Barisan but also in Pakatan Rakyat. In fact, many of the leaders of the three parties are all on the wrong side of 60.

Yes, many of them have spent much of their adult life fighting Barisan even if most of their enemies in the federal ruling coalition are retired or dead.

Previously, the opposition’s excuse for staying on so long was because they found it hard to get young people to join the party to succeed them but now this does not seem to be a problem.

We need new blood now so that in five years’ time, when we become a developed, high-income nation, there will be ample capable and mature leaders to take over.

All old politicians, regardless if they are winnable candidates, should no longer follow the path of the old Soviet regime by hanging on till death overtakes them. If the national retirement age is 60 and 65 for the judiciary, then maybe for politicians it should be 70.

Executive editor Wong Sai Wan is 51 this year and already he calls himself an old man.

Source: http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2013/4/12/columnists/whynot/12953330&sec=whynot