The Constitutional Monarchy Concept, Roles and Challenges.Assalamualaikum and a very good afternoon to the master of ceremony, distinguish guests, honorable judges, respectableteachers and fellow students.I am a Malaysian, we are all Malaysian. Malaysia is our country. Every country has their unique government system and constitution. Our constitution which is the supreme law of our country clearly stated that Malaysia is afederation of states and is practicing democracy with constitutional monarchy. The Yang Dipertuan Agong is the head of the country where the function, responsibility and authority are bind by the constitution.Amonarchyis a form ofgovernmentin whichsovereigntyis actually or nominally embodied in one or several individuals reigning until death orabdication. They are called themonarchs. When the monarch has no legal limitation, it is called anabsolute monarchy.When the monarch's discretion is formally limited by law of the country, it is calledconstitutional monarchy. Usuallythe governance of a constitutional monarchy is done by a group of ministers lead by a prime minister. They are appointed by the monarch or elected by the people of the country. As for a democratic country like Malaysia, the people voted for their representative to form a government.Republicis anotherform of governmentin which the government is ruled by elected leaders as the supreme head of the country with absolute power.The Federation of Malay States was formed in 1895 which consisted of Perak, Selangor, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan. In 1948, Penang, Malacca and the other 5 Malays states joined to form the Federation of Malaya. There are all together 9 Malay states in the federation.The rulers of these states are known as Sultan while the ruler of Negeri Sembilan is known as Yang Dipertuan Besar. These states have had their own administration system and structure beforeforming the federation. Each of them was an independent state atone time before the colonization by the Europeans and British. Penang, Malacca and Singapore were then under the administration of the British which was known as the Straits Settlements. Federation of Malaya gained independence from the British on the 31stAugust, 1957. In 1963 the federation was reconstituted with the combination of Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. Singapore separated from Malaysia to become an independent republic in 1965.The federal constitution of Malaysia guarantees the sovereignty ofthe Malay Sultan in their respective states. The conference of rulers is a council comprising of the nine rulers of the Malay states and the governors or Yang Dipertua Negeri of the other four states. This conference of rulers and its function are clearlystated in article 18 of the Malaysia constitution. According to the Malaysian National Library, the conference of rulers is the only one such institution in this world.The main responsibility of the conference of rulers is the election of the Yang Dipertuan Agong and Timbalan Yang Dipertuan Agong, which occurs every five years or when the position is vacant either through death, resignation, or removal from office. The conference of rulers also plays a role in amending the Constitution of Malaysia including those articles pertaining to the status of the rulers, the Malays and Bumiputra rights, the National language and culture.Roles of the monarch and the conference of rulers are clearly stated in the constitution, therefor no changes to its role unless amendment are made to the constitution. We are all aware that the governing political coalition does not has the majority of two third in the parliament to amend the constitution on their own. They need the support from the opposition if the want toamend it. From the current trend, any amendment seems quite impossible.That is the historical facts of the formation of Malaysia. The concept of federation and constitutional monarchy were also briefly explained. We must understand the history and theconcept of both federalism and constitutional monarchy if we want to discuss further about the constitutional monarchy of Malaysia.

The most debatable issue is the challenges that the constitutional monarchy is facing in this present era of borderless world. There are groups of people who are trying to ignore the historical facts of our country. These groups of people have gone to the extent of telling lies about the formation Malaysia. These are easily done because the young generation is very ignorant to the history of our country.The government realized this situation and is taking steps to overcome the weaknesses. Ministry of education has imposed History to be the must-pass subject in SPM in order to obtain the SPM certificate beginning from the year 2013. With this regulation, we hope to see the new generation has more understanding of our own country. This regulation effected our young generation who are 20 years old and below. How about the 20 years old and above? They are now the active citizen of this country. Most of them are the working class of people that communicate with fellow citizens and also foreigners. They also talk, discuss and debate issues of their beloved country in conventional platform or in the cyber space. They may spread wrong or negative perception of the constitutional monarchy unintentionally or intentionally. Strategic approach to educate this target group should be done in order to avoid wrong perception due to wrong factual understanding.Another challengingrole face by the constitutional monarchy is to be independent and neutral. As the highest body in our country, they are the last place for the general citizen to seek protection from the wrong doings. The role of being the protector to the general citizenmust be done and seen done to the public eyes. The Royal Commission of Inquiry is called by the rulers to investigate matters of great importance and usually controversial. These matters can be of government structure, unfair treatment to the public, events of public concern or economic issues. To date, our government with the consent of Yang Dipertuan Agung has set-up eleven royal commissions of inquiries.The misunderstanding of the public with regards to the power and protection of the rulers is alsoa challenging issue. The fact is that the nine Malay rulers are ruling the states which include all the people living in it. The Yang Dipertuan Agong and the Sultans are not for the Malays alone and are not limited to taking care of the religion of Islam,the Malay language and Malay culture only. All citizens of Malaysia from all religion, race and culture are bound to be the people of the Yang Dipertuan Agong and the Sultan where the states are concerned. This is proven from the issue being handled by the royal commission of inquiry.We have to accept the constitutional monarchy system of what Malaysia is. At least for now and show our loyalty and respect. We know the monarchy system especially the absolute monarchies are getting less being accepted and practiced in this world. The absolute monarchies are being replaced by many forms of republics. Many of the republics are facing turmoil, their leaders fight among them to be in control and the whole country becomes disorder that leads to anarchy. In order to have a strong country, a leader of a republic is always firm and practice autocratic leadership. No higher respected authority to protect the general public from the wrong doing or cruelty of this leader. Do you know that ten most dangerous countriesin the worldwhich are Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, Pakistan, Brazil, South Africa and Russia are all republic. Let us check the most peaceful country in the world. Global peace index 2014 stated ten most peaceful countries are Iceland, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Japan, Belgium, and Norway. Six countries of those are monarchies and four are republics. Many monarchies are well develop and rich countries. Seven of the top ten highly develop countriesare monarchies. They are Norway, Australia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, Liechtenstein and Sweden. Only three of them are republics which are the Unite States, Ireland and Germany.Being a relatively young and developing country like Malaysia, we,the citizen are responsible to find facts, cross check the facts and able to articulate our countrys system and its history to the others. In the other hand, being knowledgeable of our countrys history and government system can avoid us to being deceivedinto wrong perception and wild accusation by certain people with their hidden agenda.Nevertheless, both systems have their own strength and weakness. People use to say that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It may be partially true but do we ever think of the thorns, spines and prickles underneath the green grass over there which are not known to us over this side? With that question I rest my case. Thank you for the ears given and may God bless us and our country.