Malaysian Members of Parliament should take a good look at how their immediate neighbours handle political crises. Up in the north, Thailand finally resolved its leadership problem after three months of intense negotiations and chose a prime minister by vote.

Thai MPs risked political chaos for three months for the sake of following the democratic process of electing their prime minister. They understood what our MPs don’t seem to understand: A government led by a prime minister who is not democratically elected will always be unstable.

Thai MPs chose a period of uncertainty in order to install a democratically-elected government that could provide a longer period of stability.

There were gains and losses but they respected the final outcome when put to the vote. In the process, the progressive Move Forward Party which won the general election held on May 14 lost the right to form a government. The party’s leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat was voted out by pro-military MPs.

In conceding defeat, Pita also gave his party’s backing to the Pheu Thai Party, which came second in the general election, and so took the turn to form the government. After much negotiations, the party proposed a hitherto unknown party member, Srettha Thavisin, as the prime ministerial candidate, in the next vote. Srettha won with the support of the pro-military bloc.

Three months is, indeed, a long time to resolve the choice of a democratically-elected prime minister but it was a risk the Thais took in order to ensure that the democratic processes were followed, and it proved a success. No one can now argue about the constitutional legitimacy of Srettha’s government. Hopefully, next time though they will take a much shorter time to elect a prime minister!

The Thai MPs, however, should be lauded for their confidence in navigating the chaos in Parliament by themselves without external interference. The chaos was confined in Parliament and did not spill over to the rest of the country and the Thais must be commended for managing that period of uncertainty without putting the country at risk.

While their MPs did their job, the Thai king stayed out of the political fray and only endorsed the prime minister after Srettha was elected by the MPs.

In Malaysia, when faced with a hung Parliament, MPs failed to show the confidence the Thai MPs demonstrated; the former did not take the risk of momentary chaos for the greater benefit of the future stability of a democratically-elected government. They chose political expediency over constitutional legitimacy, and meekly followed the direction of the constitutional monarch and formed a government with the help of a Memorandum of Understanding without negotiating with major coalitions to form a majority government.

Now, we have a unity government with a two-thirds majority but which excludes representation by the major race in the country.

Perhaps, the irony of it has not been missed by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and that may be the reason why he has bent over backwards to give incentives to the Malays in and out of government before the just concluded state elections to win over their support but it was too late.

He should have thought of including the majority Malay representation before and not after he became prime minister. The state elections results clearly show that no amount of concessions to the Malays will win them over to support the Anwar-led government. Their choice is Perikatan Nasional (PN).

This is the reality that Anwar must accept: The majority of the Malays did not choose him to be the prime minister and he needs to act accordingly for the stability of the country.

Down south, in Singapore, Transport Minister S Iswaran who was arrested on corruption charges is now on bail and placed on a leave of absence until the disposal of his case. Two other MPs, former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin and Cheng Li Hui resigned from parliament and the People’s Action Party (PAP) for having an extramarital affair.

In Malaysia, the prime minister and the deputy prime minister are both facing court charges but they stood for election, won and accepted the top two jobs in the country. Anwar has set a precedent that even PN politicians are following!

Kedah now has a menteri besar who is also facing court charges. Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor is from the Islamic party PAS, a PN member. Why an Islamic party that touts itself as a clean party unlike its rivals Umno and PKR (members of Anwar’s unity government) would make a party member facing charges in court the Menteri Besar defies logic.

Internationally, Malaysia’s image may be marred especially when compared to the neighbouring nations whose leaders are striving to hold themselves to a higher standard of performance and public conduct.

Malaysian MPs and politicians should likewise do the same and set a higher bar of public conduct and performance for themselves.