2020 is a year of COVID-19 pandemic. We started the year 2020 with a lot of hope with the Pakatan Harapan (PH) in its on-going reform agenda.

Unexpectedly, COVID-19 hit us on January 25 and since then, we have not only faced the challenges from the pandemic but also the political crisis with a fragile coalition, Perikatan Nasional (PN) that governs the federal government.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had major political consequences. Crises provide an audit of government capability and performance. In today’s column, I would like to share some thoughts on the lessons learned.

First, we could not ignore the different challenges in the balancing act of curbing the spread of COVID-19. Admittedly, this is one of the major challenges that the government faces.

In the time of crisis like this, the governance of government institutions and agencies plays an important role. While there has been much praise to the Ministry of Health in managing COVID-19, the responsibility does not fall under the sole shoulder of the ministry but also other ministries including the youths, women and children, and education.

This has linkage with government policies, yet we have not let our parliament to function in its full optimum more innovatively. Instead, the one-day parliament sitting with no debates allowed has become a tainted mark in our parliamentary democracy.

The opposition has not been allowed enough voice in debating bills and guidelines with regards to COVID-19; rather it has been left to only the ruling coalition.

Although the parliament session was finally allowed at a much later stage, where the cases have since increased. This puts a question on a healthy parliament debate sessions with the necessary voices coming from both teams: the government and the opposition.

Second, Malaysia was initially performing rather well compared to many other countries at a global level. However, we have seen a sharp increase of cases where a significant amount of the latest cases are from work spaces such as construction sites and factories, as well as prisons. At the time of writing, Malaysia recorded a total of 86,618 cases with 422 deaths.

Outbreaks behind bars pose a challenge for state governments, as many prisons suffer from overcrowding. The marginalized in the society are often worst hit by the pandemic, and in the case of Malaysia, it is evident from the major outbreaks in these places.

Prison reforms and calls for workers’ rights including the foreign workers are not new, but the situation has been exacerbated with COVID-19.

The impacts that the marginalized group faces also include groups such as refugees, persons with disabilities and others in the socioeconomic spectrum.

Some of the factors are lack of access to effective surveillance, early warning systems and health services.

Third, COVID-19 has put governments across the world under pressure to react quickly and decisively. The trade-off between health versus economy is not as easy as we all recognize. The absence of consistent guidelines to the public and a lack of compliance with standard operating procedures (SOPs) have raised the alarm of the general public.

While there is a need to stimulate the economy, extensive testing and compulsory tracing/registration systems should be more closely monitored with procedures being upheld. As a result, such shifts in decision-making authorities have consequences for public trust.

Fourth is related to the approaches that the government uses in addressing the public concern on COVID-19, including its technological tools.

Pandemic response organized by hierarchical, partisan or technical dominance is likely to limit or exclude options for public and democratic deliberation.

While this can be perceived as effective in the narrow achievement of disease control, it raises many questions in the long run on broader functioning of a society, and state-society relations.

In a nutshell, COVID-19 is a catalyst in revealing the weaknesses in some government services, showing that the government indeed requires flexibility in people, process, policy and systems.

(Khoo Ying Hooi is Universiti Malaya Senior Lecturer.)