AFTER a series of bitter defeats suffered by Manchester United, the board of the club had decided that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who happened to be the club’s star, has to forgo his managerial position he had been holding since 2019.

Manchester United is a football club that is known to respect class and sustainability. Since Beckham was still adored for his barnets, “defeat” has been a dirty word that will never synonymously fit the English football empire that was once sailed by the one and only Sir Alex Ferguson.

Like Manchester United, a government, especially our country’s, has to also respect the people’s expectations for the performance of the ministers that any ministers, whom they found incompetent and unreliable, must be asked to leave the mantles.

It is important for the government to realise the hopes of the people, who are now getting dull against politics and politicians.

Even Nazri Aziz, a senior politician of the country, has admitted to the reality that “politician” has become a hateful profession in the eyes of the people. As he also said in a committee-stage debate of the 2022 budget, politicians, be they senators, MPs or even state assemblypersons, especially those political frogs, are no longer favoured by the mass who are wielded with no power to unseat any incompetent minister they detest.

The 100-day KPI that gauges the early performance of every federal minister must be seriously taken as a professional way of retaining good-quality ministers and of course, ejecting those whose works have caused nothing but dissatisfaction of the people.

Even in football, what is voiced by supporters does matter to every future decision that will be made by decision makers of a club. If the club’s manager does well with his team consistently winning in every match, the supporters won’t be making noise about demanding his immediate termination and replacement.

Same goes to politics, if a minister doesn’t succeed in his or her entrusted portfolio, although he or she only serves less than a year, he or she has to be replaced by anyone else whom the prime minister (and the rakyat) find credible to supersede the seat.

The 100-day KPI isn’t supposed to be just a plain cosmetic that will mend nothing. A key performance indicator, or whatever you call it, does seriously mean to assess one’s job.

In industry, especially in the operation section, “outputs” will be a judgement that will decide the survival of operatives working in the department. Their monthly outputs will define their credibility and competence at work.

In the reality of life, there are ordinary people, who have no Vellfire that could ferry them to work, suddenly ejected from their jobs because of the economic shutdowns. At work, they used to be heroes that drove the company’s business longevity, and when their hard work is just a thing of the past, what is left for them to do is dip into their little financial savings and cry for help.

So now, the question for all of us to answer is: is it fair for us to let any incompetent ministers be superfluously remunerated without their jobs being done successfully?

Who do you think has to follow the footsteps of #OleOut?


* Amerul Azry Abdul Aziz is an independent writer who now views politics as something that can be researched.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.