Academician: M'sia under Harapan rule an unmitigated disaster
Public policy analyst Lim Teck Ghee has described Malaysia under Pakatan Harapan as an unmitigated disaster.
Speaking at the "Whither Maruah Malaysia 2.0" forum today, he said the list of disappointments under its rule was still growing.
Public policy analyst Lim Teck Ghee has described Malaysia under Pakatan Harapan as an unmitigated disaster.
Speaking at the "Whither Maruah Malaysia 2.0" forum today, he said the list of disappointments under its rule was still growing.
"For now, it is clear post-GE14 has been a disaster, it is been an unmitigated disaster for reform from whichever aspect or way you look at," he said.
"Education, governance, race relations, religious relations, the debacles of Icerd, Zakir Naik, the Melayu Dignity Congress and more. The list of political disappointments and failures keeps growing," he said.
He opined that high-level corruption and economic crimes kept coming back and thus continued vigilance was vital together with the need for whistle-blowers to emerge.
Lim also noted that the policies, programmes and mindsets associated with Ketuanan Melayu and Ketuanan Islam doctrines had been propagated to a largely captive audience.
"This is the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of 'New Malaysia'. So it is less easily financially quantifiable but a more ubiquitous and more destructive feature of nation-building cultivated by Umno and PAS," he said.
"Policy reform is a long process that has to be run through the civil service as politicians come and go," he said.
"The reality is that an increasingly mono-racial civil service [...] it is moving to the extremity of race and religion.
"So how to detoxify the civil service which is a monster, in size and bringing a toxic mixture of race and religion," he said.
The people needed to ask themselves what they could do under such circumstances, added Lim.
Former Bar Council chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan, meanwhile, told politicians to stand firm in rejecting racial and religious rhetoric.
“When you have extreme racial rhetoric and religious extremism that seem to be taking root, what are we expecting our leaders to do? I am expecting our leaders to show courage. I am expecting our leaders to actually put their foot down and say this is unacceptable rhetoric," she said.
"We have come to a point where hate speech is being freely and liberally disseminated online," she said.
She also repeated her call for the government to form a bipartisan committee for race relations.
MCA vice-president Ti Lian Ker said Harapan had failed to bring about a progressive Malaysia as it pledged prior to GE14.
"Many ministers and MPs are curious when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is stepping down and are plotting for their own political parties' interests instead of genuinely serving the people," he said.
He also said that Harapan had continued with BN's New Economic Policy (NEP) through its newly-launched SPV 2030 (SPV).
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