Soon all of us would know who is our elected representative of our respective areas. I noticed that for the 14th General Election on May 9, many aspiring candidates have begun to campaign for their political parties contesting in their area.
The attraction to be called “Honourable” is so powerful. My question is, why was it chosen to address the people’s representatives with the term “Honourable” instead of the term “Serving”? Quite a many of these elected representatives, don’t live up to the “Honourable” term.
As citizens, let’s not be misled by these terminologies. Normally, individuals of political parties offer themselves as candidates in any general election. Then, they seek the support of the people by representing the people in the State Assembly. Hence, the role as representatives to the people must be more accurately called “Serving”.
If they represent the people, it means the people are the bosses of all the State Assemblymen and Members of Parliament in Malaysia. So, where is the logic of a person to be called “The Honourable” after winning an election?
Perhaps, we should stop creating the feudal culture by giving the serving servants the designation of “Honourable”. In today’s scenario, quite a few of these representatives are caught for various offences including corruption, cheating and even shirking their responsibilities. It’s high time, all of us start using the term “Serving” instead of the term “Honourable”.
Therefore, I strongly subscribe to the use of a precise terminology which must be appropriate, when we address our elected representatives.
S. Sundralingam
