With only minutes left on the clock to bid adieu to 2018 (at the time of writing), it would be amiss if not to welcome the new Malaysia into a new era.
2018 saw the fall of the behemoth Barisan Nasional to the newly minted Pakatan Harapan. And it took the masterful manipulation of Machiavellian maestro Tun Mahathir to make it happen.
Despite initial worries that the fall of Barisan Nasional would lead to racial riots, it did not happen, and power was handed over peacefully.
And with it, Malaysian politics enter a new phase.
However, the euphoria of a new Malaysia lasted only days, probably months, as the new coalition fought and jostled for power internally.
And worse still, once they had been appointed to the ministerial posts they so sought, these former opposition leaders who had always been very critical of the former government, seemed suddenly without ideas to run the country.
Policies from the previous government were recycled, with minor tweaking, and relaunched as new policies, inconsistent decisions, flip flops, that had resulted in a huge outflow of foreign investment.
Though the Finance Minister had proclaimed otherwise that new investment had reached 250% (or was it 350%?), the market doesn’t seems to point to that direction.
The Pakatan Harapan government being a young government, with many newly appointed to ministerial posts.
However, this is a rather weak argument. Many of PH ministers were formerly UMNO leaders with ministerial post experience.
Worst still, they could have formed shadow government to prepare themselves for the job. But no they said. Not only that this decision prevented them from delaying the formation of Cabinet, this had also led to jitters in the market.
Credit must be given to Barisan Nasional who had decided that they needed to form a shadow cabinet, despite initially rejected the idea. However, I must point out, that giving lip service of forming the shadow cabinet without any concrete ideas and alternate policies carry nought. Then again, probably they had too many frogs to handle.
Anyway, 2019 is a new year. A new era (not to be confused with New Era College). Both Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional must buck up. No more mud-slinging, no more slandering. We are all on the same ship called Malaysia. Either we steer the ship together or we sink together.
Otherwise, we the rakyat will set up a retirement home for all MPs from both sides of the table in Sungai Bakap, whereby the phonetic pronounciation of the place will remind them of their failure to buck up for the country.
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