Umno dissident Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, resuming his discourses on the state of the nation and how it got the way it is now, said the big difference between the Merdeka set of leaders and their successors was the “generational responsibility” that marked the former.

In a speech at the New Club in Taiping last night, the Gua Musang MP, who in the last two years has engaged in public musings on the state of the Malaysian polity, said that the nation’s first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, “symbolised the concept and conviction of generational responsibility in his vision.”

“Tunku Abdul Rahman and his generation were dedicated leaders, not for power but a sense of duty to the present and the future,” asserted Razaleigh.

“They were not in politics for the money or for themselves. Indeed, even after they had assumed power, they never used their position to benefit themselves or their families, nor did they build loyal cronies who would act as their financiers or hold any wealth unlawfully earned at the expense of the people,” he added.

Razaleigh said the Tunku had proclaimed at Independence in 1957 that “Malaysia is a parliamentary democracy with an independent judiciary” and he had “a vision of a happy nation in spite of the formidable economic obstacles we needed to solve.”

“After that dawn of independence, there was a search of how we could achieve this happy society, fulfilling the needs and aspirations of all Malaysians which was to continue for the generations to come,” said Razaleigh...