The evolution of how humans find themselves governed is a subject of abiding interest for me.
Some see modern representative democracy as a ‘pinnacle’ of sorts, an achievement in which humans can now finally choose who they want to govern them, and how they want to be governed.
I prefer to see what we tend to term ‘democracy’ today as another stepping stone - and one that we may have been stuck on for a little too long.
Today, I thought to examine how political change tends to happen within our current forms of democracy, and the manner in which governments seem to often swing wildly from left to right.
There are plenty of recent examples to draw from.
In Sweden - a country often perceived as progressive - a very right-wing party became the second largest political party in Parliament after the 2022 Swedish general election.
In Italy, general elections were won by Giorgia Meloni, who leads a political party that Wikipedia describes as ‘radical right’ with ‘neo-fascist roots’.
Going to Latin America, Chile recently saw not a general election, but a plebiscite (which can be thought of as a referendum, but bigger and more important) to vote on accepting a new Constitution. It was recognised as being groundbreakingly progressive, but was defeated by a large margin in the vote, losing 62 per cent to 38 per cent.
Looking from the recent past to the near future, general elections are coming up in Brazil.
Here, right wing Jair Bolsonaro - compared by some to Donald Trump - is going up against leftist and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Opinion polls have Lula leading Bolsonaro by a considerable margin.
In the UK, all hell appears to be breaking loose, under new Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.
I’m not generally one to encourage superstition, but imagine that the first major things that happen right after taking office are the death of the Queen (certainly coincidental), and the British Pound dropping to the lowest level against the US Dollar since 1985 (certainly no coincidence at all).
The left-wing Labour party meanwhile recently had its conference, and obviously had a field day - where what looked like a more competent and articulate set of leaders leaders positioned themselves as the next government. With all that is happening, it seems the equivalent of a ‘bola tanggung’.
I summarise these developments as governments swinging somewhat wildly from left to right, and from right to left.
It appears that when one leader goes too far in one direction, another rises to take the country back in the other direction.
One way to interpret this is that our democratic systems are working, keeping things in check and balance, and basically moderating where a country is headed.
Another way to interpret this is that switching back and forth from far left to far right every few years means that on aggregate, a country is effectively going nowhere.
It’s like trying to decide whether to go east or west. Imagine going east for 5km, and then deciding you’d prefer to go west instead, so you turn and go west for another 5km.
If one simply repeats this back and forth - then net displacement is zero. In others, we’ve literally gone nowhere.
On one level, this is of course a gross oversimplification of what is happening. On another level, if we really zoom out, I believe there is some value to the analogy.
Different democratic systems around the world obviously generate different dynamics. It does seem however, that a majority (or a plurality perhaps) seem to still divide politics along some sort of left-right axis.
A very unscientific survey also seems to suggest that many countries just seem to go back and forth along this spectrum over time.
Some rather interesting newer parties or movements that seem to transcend these lines have emerged over time - notably perhaps the 5 Star Movement in Italy, and France’s en Marche.
These seem to be some early attempts at trying to redefine the left-right spectrum, and shake things up. They’ve definitely had some success on this front - but just how long term that success will be remains to be fully seen.
Such ‘post-ideological’ movements are perhaps a response to the sentiment that a left-right divide increasingly fails to accurately reflect a nation’s aspirations, and are also perhaps an expression of the frustration with what might perhaps best be termed the ‘pointlessness’ of politics - or the political process more generally.
I’m sure many Malaysians can relate to the feeling that whether I vote for person/party A or B, my life is not really going to improve the way I want it to. Worse yet, only A or B seem to have any chance of winning.
These examples from around the world are the smallest sampling of how ‘democracies’ all over appear to be becoming more and more dysfunctional by the year.
Systems seem to have developed incentive structures that reward bickering and mudslinging, and disincentivise any sort of real, meaningfully collaboration between what must be hundreds and thousands of truly talented, capable people in a country.
Those resources and energies seem to be wasted instead in a constant fight between A and B, rather than spent on trying to get the best of A and B together for the good of the nation.
In Malaysia, this manifests itself in the constant alignment, realignment, and then realignment of the realignment of our various political parties - practically playing musical chairs in terms of trying to form alliances, even as the general elections are at most less than a year away.
Perhaps it is a good time to learn from both the successes and failures of others around the world who have tried to break free from this cycle, and start imagining how we might completely re-engineer the democratic process so that it actually reflects what people really want from their government.
NATHANIEL TAN works with Projek #BangsaMalaysia. Twitter: @NatAsasi, Email: nat@engage.my. #BangsaMalaysia #NextGenDemocracy.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.