Senior Minister for International Trade and Industry Mohamed Azmin Ali is deluded by his own lies that foreign investors’ confidence unaffected by the PN government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of emergency suspending Parliament. This is not the first time that Azmin has indulged in such lies.
We recall Azmin’s notorious claim in Sabah politicising the COVID-19 pandemic that if not for the PN government, more people would have died from COVID-19 under a PH government. The fact of the matter is that there are 601 deaths from COVID-19 under PN government, as compared to none when PH was in government under Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.
Azmin was the prime mover of the Sheraton move that replaced a democratically elected PH government with an unelected PN government in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is also Mr U-turn with his Ministry first prohibiting business sectors from operating like the automotive industry, optical and optometry as well as laundromat, before allowing them to open. Without any consultation, his Ministry arbitrarily classify certain businesses as non-essential service and prohibited from operating, even though they have few or are free from COVID-19 cases.
And now Azmin makes the irresponsible claim that investors’ confidence was not affected as proven when a state of emergency was previously imposed in the Gerik parliamentary constituency in Perak and Bugaya state constituency in Sabah. These are local issues that are supported by the opposition to prevent a by-election to contain the spread of COVID-19.
However, the national Emergency imposed is not to prevent any general or state elections but to suspend Parliament to protect the PN government and Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin when they have clearly lost their parliamentary majority. One of the principal reasons for the downgrade of Malaysia’s sovereign credit ratings by Fitch Ratings is political instability, and that was when Muhyiddin still retained a slim parliamentary majority. There is no rhyme or reason for investor confidence not to be affected by such chronic political instability after Muhyiddin lost his parliamentary majority with only 109 MPs out of a total of 222 MPs.
Further the rise in unemployment by 0.1% to 4.8% in November 2020, and the current economic recession cannot boost investor confidence. Can Azmin answer then that without any additional financial assistance from the PN government forthcoming, how can the Emergency help to stop retrenchments, business closures and loss of economic livelihood?