The Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) 17-point drop yesterday showed a lack of confidence in the country's top leadership especially after Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad presented an ambitious 10-year development plan, the Parliament was told today.

Keadilan MP for Kemaman Abdul Rahman Yusof said the situation would have been worse if several institutions did not embark on a buying spree at the last hour to prop up the KLSE's composite index.

"Doesn't this indicate the country's leadership is facing a very serious confidence crisis?" queried Abdul Rahman, during debate time in Parliament.

Yesterday, Mahathir unveiled the Third Outline Perspective Plan aimed at doubling the per capital income by 2010. Today, the stock market plunged an additional 38 points to close at 594.26.

Well-connected

Abdul Rahman said the people have been waiting for three years for the economy to recover and are disappointed with the government for "bailing out crony companies".

"The rakyat are disappointed because the government is only interested in rescuing certain companies which are well-connected with the leadership," Abdul Rahman said, adding that the rescue was made to look as if it were executed to recover the economy on the whole.

"Many ways are used to blind the eyes of the people to the things the government does in order to save crony companies," he said.

Abdul Rahman claimed the practise resulted in numerous drawbacks. He cited high debts and borrowing cost, declining savings, poor investor interests, plunging shares, escalating price of consumer goods, high retrenchment figures, transparency and accountability of leadership questioned, as examples.

In order to cling on to power, he added, the country's leadership uses the judiciary, police and media, resulting in the loss of credibility and accountability of those institutions as well.

'Golden children'

He said 20 years after launching of the New Economic Policy (NEP), the Barisan Nasional felt it was time to create a group of billionaires among certain individuals together with a group of selected Chinese and Indians.

Abdul Rahman compared the existence of this group to that of the special class of people under the Eastern Europe communist system.

"They are considered as Umno's 'golden children', who have been blessed with the NEP. They represent the new Malay race," he said.

Abdul Rahman said the prime minister was very happy with this group of people and often took them along with him on his overseas trips to secure projects.

"Now many of these projects are facing problems. Lately, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) was reported to have completed its investigation on a Malaysian business representative who had allegedly bribed the Tanzanian government officials for RM50 million," he said. Abdul Rahman questioned if any action would be taken against the "culprit".

Cronyism and nepotism

He said in 1998 a confrontation took place in the Umno general assembly between the then deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir over the distribution of wealth issue.

"Anwar questioned whether the country's wealth had been distributed to only a small group of people including Mahathir's own children. Whereas, Mahathir insisted it was distributed fairly and equally," Abdul Rahman recounted.

"This confrontation should have been resolved by drawing up fairer polices for all races, especially for the bumiputra. Unfortunately, it ended with the sacking of Anwar from all official posts and his subsequent arrest and imprisonment," he said.

Since then, Abdul Rahman claimed cronyism and nepotism continued to plague Umno, resulting in the erosion of Malay support for the party.

Despite this, he said Mahathir continued to implement mega-projects which were unsuccessful, leading to many "government bailouts".