The 31-day eight-week parliamentary meeting is coming to an end with three weeks left, but there are no sign that Bersatu and PAS MPs are prepared to show a face of moderation, inclusivity, tolerance and integrity so that Malaysia can recover and be a world-class nation again.
The Anwar unity government has passed the first Hundred Day test but the Bersatu and PAS MPs have dismally failed in the test.
Malaysians are still hoping that there would be institutional reforms and a reset of nation-building policies to unite Malaysians regardless of race or religion and to make Malaysia recover and again become a world-class nation, and the performance of the Bersatu and PAS MPs have reinforced their beliefs that it was a great blessing in disguise that the Perikatan Nasional had not formed the Federal Government after the 15th General Election on Nov. 19, 2022.
Malaysia had gained a breathing space with the formation of the Anwar unity government and the speech of the 16th Yang di Pertuan Agong in his Royal Address at the opening of the 15th Parliament on Feb. 13, 2023 resonates throughout the country when the Yang di Pertuan Agong said he hoped Anwar Ibrahim would the last Prime Minister he would swear in before he ends his five-year tenure next January.
Malaysians thought that they had succeeded in the 14th General Election to end the multi-billion ringgit 1MDB scandal which had given Malaysia a global bad name as a kleptocracy, but they were horrified that the Sheraton Move political conspiracy had ushered a greater scandal, the Jana Wibawa scheme, which was launched in November 2020 in the name of helping bumiputera contractors in the Covid-19 pandemic.
The shock of the Jana Wibawa scandal is all the greater when it is understood in the context of a false Emergency which was declared on January 11, 2021 that led to the suspension of Parliament to allegedly fight the Covid-19 pandemic – when the emergency was declared, there were 2,232 daily new Covid-19 cases and four daily Covid-19 deaths but on the last day of the Emergency on August 1, 2021, the daily new Covid-19 cases rose to 17,150 cases, an increase more than eight times, and daily Covid-19 deaths increased to 160 deaths, an increase of forty-times.
It would appear that the sole beneficiaries of the Covid-19 pandemic and the false Emergency were the Bersatu and PAS leaders.
It is shocking that Bersatu and PAS MPs have defied the Yang di Pertuan Agong’s advice for political stability for Malaysia to recover and become again a world-class nation, and that they have also defied the calls of the Sultans to stop polarising race and religious relations in plural Malaysia by the divisive and toxic politics of lies, falsehoods and fake news and to support anti-corruption efforts.
One best way to end the divisive and toxic politics which has polarised race and religious relations is for the PAS President, Hadi Awang to retract in Parliament his preposterous allegation that the DAP was promoting Islamophobia, as he has not been able to substantiate his preposterous allegation against the DAP for the last four months.
But Hadi had done the opposite. He predicted the imminent collapse of the Anwar unity government, in open defiance of the advice of the Royalty in Malaysia.
The final three weeks of the Parliamentary meeting will be a test as to whether the Bersatu and PAS MPs are prepared to show a face of moderation, inclusivity, tolerance and integrity so that Malaysia can recover and be a world-class nation again with Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, re-uniting and stop their suspicion and distrust of each other.