The only country in the world that has a weird ruling for car import is Malaysia. Most countries are not as paranoid as our government is over their citizens importing cars. Instituting the Approved Permit scheme to protect Proton is really just a pretext; a red herring.
The reality is to enable some people to print money. What is most astonishing is that those involved claim to be Muslim. Well , let them just explain to God later whether the money they made is 'halal' or not.
Politicians are supposed to be servants of the population. Unfortunately, most of our politicians only care for their own pockets and interests. Whatever means to squeeze the rakyat are deployed wantonly upon hardworking Malaysians.
Cars in Malaysia are really too expensive beyond their real worth. The irresponsible politicians know that most Malaysian families are large and require big and reasonably powered vehicles (ie, with high power/ weight ratio).
The net result of this squeeze is that people can only afford 'coffins-on-wheels' (underpowered and tinny cars). Malaysia has very high on-the-road fatalities. Adding to our mad driving a la Malaysian style, the only affordable motor vehicles for the masses are also inferior in safety features.
Our politicians have on their hands the blood of all those victims of road accidents who couldn't afford better cars. This government really doesn't care about the people. It knows very well that most people need vehicles to do their jobs, for recreation, to 'balik kampung' etc.
And since the prices of cars are way too high, people have to resort to taking loans, thereby putting more unwarranted burden on the family budget. The Friday sermons about practicing 'adil wa ehsan' (justice and compassion) really mean nothing to the soulless hearts of our politicians. I really don't see much Islamic values in the government's practices; it's all just razzmatazz.
I seriously urge the opposition parties to include the abolishment of the AP scheme in their next election manifestos.