At the beginning of Malaysia’s nationhood in the fifties and sixties in the last century, there were two countries whose progress concerned Malaysians – Sri Lanka in Asia and Nigeria in Africa.
In 1960,. Nigeria had a higher GDP per capita than Malaysia while Malaysia was twice as rich as Sri Lanka.
Today, Sri Lanka and Nigeria were failures in nation-building, with Malaysia five times more well-off than the Nigerians while Sri Lanka has become a failed and divided state – with Sri Lanka four times poorer than Malaysia.
Perikatan Nasional (PN) of PAS and Bersatu will lead Malaysia to become a failed and divided state – and there can be no better example of the failed and divided Malaysia than the example of the way PAS treated the Gerakan national charman, Dominic Lau, at a PN function in Penang.
The Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional coalition do not want Malaysia to end up as a divided, failed and corrupt state like Sri Lanka and Nigeria.
We want Malaysia to rise up again to be a great world-class nation like South Korea and Singapore, to be examples for other countries to emulate than to be nations for other countries to warn of the failures of nation-building.
For the last few decades, Malaysia has been in national decline, losing out to Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and even Vietnam.
We are in danger of losing out to Indonesia and Thailand in ASEAN, as have developed half as fast as Indonesia and Thailand in the past sixty years.
We will lose to Indonesia and China in the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) before 2030 unless we buck up in our anti-corruption campaign.
Perikatan Nasional (PN) of PAS and Bersatu has no vision or plans for Malaysia to rise again and become a great world-class nation but only a policy which will end up with Malaysia as a divided, failed and corrupt state like Sri Lanka and Nigeria.
In fact, under Muhyiddin Yassin as Prime Minister in 2020 after the infamous Sheraton Move political conspiracy, Malaysa fell to the worst ranking in one year in the TI CPI 2021 which had taken Malaysia 25 years to reach the worst ranking from 1995 – 2020: i.e. No. 62 out of 180 countries.
The Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim has spelt out his Malaysia vision in Ekonomi Madani which among others, has the following objectives:
- Top 30 biggest economies in the world in terms of nominal gross domestic products. Malaysia currently ranks 35.
- Top 12 in IMD World Competitive Index. The current rank is 27.
- Top 25 in the UN Human Development Index. Current rank is 62.
- Top 25 in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Current rank is 61.
Let us show our support for Anwar by voting for his policies on August 12, and demonstrate we want more institutional reforms and changes.
This is why I say the six state polls on August 12 is not only about the future of individual constituencies like Balakong, or the fate of six states of Selangor, Penang, Negri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, but also about the future of Malaysia and that of our children and children’s children.