Covid-19: A Historic Tribute to the Frontliners and Its Impact on Malaysia's Political Security and Communication Strategy

The zoonotic disease called COVID-19 has been the world’s number one enemy for the past three years now. The first quarter of 2020 kicked start with deaths exceeding 1 million people from early March 2020, and to date (May 2023), 6,921,614 deaths as reported in the World Health Organisation (WHO) daily dashboard. In this trying time, leadership, competency, and communication have been the epicenter of all governments in combating the spread of COVID-19. A study on the dynamics of public service vis-à-vis political leadership is conducted to generate behavioural patterns of governance in handling the pandemic crisis. The secondary sources used in this study's data gathering include official government documents, related books, online publications, dissertations, documents, archives, and journals that have been published in the study's field. After that, these data underwent qualitative analysis. This article explains in the Malaysian context, how leadership of the public service has shaped the pandemic with excellent leadership, proper competency, and effective communication strategy in ensuring the curve for new cases is flattened in a shorter period. It goes further to re-examine political security taking into aspect of political actors with civil servants. Given the severity of the pandemic and the unprecedented government’s establishment (through political turmoil), contribute new perspectives for handling the crisis in Malaysia. In doing so, existing structures and actors of disaster management are also examined, to search for a better synergy in the nation’s effort undermining COVID-19. Contrary to the perception of the less-ability of the government to weather the crisis, the article highlighted on coordination strategy of all actors and institutions involved, which received international and local recognition.