Recently, our social media timelines were flooded with complaints about massive toll hikes, following the announcement that toll rates for 18 highways would be raised by significant amounts, with some going up by more than 100 percent!

Some have tried to rationalise the toll hikes by linking them to an overall effort to reduce traffic congestion in urban areas, yet this is not reflected by the fact that many of the toll hikes would affect highways not only in the city but many that provide critical links to suburban areas with no proper public transportation system.

At the same time, the existing public transportation infrastructure is hardly an efficient alternative, especially with the MRT and LRT extensions still under construction.

Economic oppression

Worse, the prime minister even warned that if the toll rates are not raised, there would be less funds for other things, including the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) welfare payments. Is the prime minister effectively saying that highway-users are subsidising BR1M?

And what about those in the middle-income category, ineligible for BR1M but punished with rising cost of living? I suppose they should just tighten their belts, wake up earlier or take alternative roads, going by our cabinet ministers’ logic.

If rising fuel costs, higher toll rates and the implementation of the 6 percent Goods and Services Tax ( GST) this year is not bad enough, the icing on the cake must surely be the performance of the ringgit, which has plummeted from hovering just over 3.0 to the US dollar two years ago to about 4.5 today. The ringgit has performed badly against many other currencies including the British pound, which is now around 6.6.

This is one of the main reasons why, despite crude oil prices staying low, petrol prices continue to increase in Malaysia because we buy our oil in US dollars.

Yet instead of taking responsibility for our economic misfortunes, which many analysts including Bank Negara have attributed to the loss of public confidence following the multi-billion-ringgit 1MDB scandal and the prime minister’s suspicious personal financial transactions, the government continues to pull the wool over the rakyat’s eyes.

In the recent Budget 2016 presentation, the prime minister sang praises about how the GST will save the country from bankruptcy with an estimated RM39 billion worth of collections next year. Has he forgotten where this RM39 billion will actually come from? It’s not money out of thin air – it is taxes collected from the rakyat.

If the GST did not exist, this RM39 billion would in fact be circulating within the Malaysian economy and being productive instead of ending up channelled towards the government, which does not seem to be doing a good job keeping their finances in order.

Oppression of civil liberties

When the Mahathir Mohamad era ended more than 10 years ago, many of us thought we had seen the end of crude and oppressive politics. Unfortunately, we have not only returned to the era, but have fallen deeper into the abyss. This year, we have seen the suspension of business newspaper The Edge and blocking of whistleblower website Sarawak Report, both of which have been unrelenting in their exposés of 1MDB.

Not too long ago, the government also amended the Sedition Act, though not to abolish it as promised but actually to sharpen its claws, extending the maximum jail sentence to 20 years from three years and to establish a minimum three-year jail term. Besides that, laws have also been passed to allow the authorities the detain people without trial.

Last September, Dr Azmi Sharom lost his constitutional challenge against the Sedition Act. It baffles the mind to think that a law lecturer is facing criminal prosecution for comments he made about a constitutional crisis. If academics cannot even comment on areas that they are supposed to be experts in, then our nation is facing a serious crisis that goes all the way down to our roots.

Days ago, Bersih organiser Maria Chin Abdullah was charged under the Peaceful Assembly Act, despite the fact that the Bersih 4 rally was, for all intents and purposes, a peaceful demonstration.

And to make matters worse, DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang has been suspended for six months merely for questioning the speaker’s role in preventing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from holding its meetings in order to investigate 1MDB. Politically, Kit Siang is merely the latest in a long line of victims that includes the former deputy prime minister and former attorney-general.

And if silencing Kit Siang was not enough, Tony Pua has now been officially warned not to partake in a public debate on the 1MDB issue, or risk his place in the PAC.

Malaysia is in a state of unprecedented flux. The economy is struggling to churn, investor confidence is low, academics, civil society leaders and politicians are being silenced one by one, and even the Conference of Rulers have found it necessary to voice their concerns.

Questions are being asked by all and sundry, yet answers remain scarce. Meanwhile, the one person who is supposed to answer them continues to remain silent, fiddling while Rome burns.

So tell me again... why is Najib Abdul Razak still the prime minister?

DYANA SOFYA MOHD DAUD is executive member of national Dapsy and executive member of Perak DAP.