More and more voices are being raised expressing grave concern about the state of Malaysian economy, governance and democracy.
Today, among those who have spoken range from the Sultan of Johor; the nation’s top banker and brother of the Prime Minister, CIMB group chairman Datuk Nazir Razak and former Cabinet Minster who was Minister for Trade and Industry for more than two decades from 1987-2008, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.
Sultan Ibrahim Ismail Iskandar of Johor called on the federal government to resolve the instability facing the country as well as the falling ringgit.
He said that the “unstable political and economic situation“ the country is in now is a major issue which has to be dealt with immediately.
He said Putrajaya should not fool the rakyat by whitewashing the problems faced by the country.
Nazir voiced concern over the economy due to the ringgit freefall and said “people in power should stop saying ‘stupid things’ in order to help the economy”.
Rafidah questioned whether Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s acceptance of RM2.6 billion, said to be from a Middle Eastern donor, has opened Umno to being manipulated by foreigners.
She said: “Umno is the backbone of the BN government. Influencing Umno would mean influencing the government.”
Rafidah said that the RM2.6 billion incident has taken money politics plaguing Umno to new heights, and that other Umno leaders were also in some way responsible for the fiasco.
The Prime Minister must end his denial complex and address the reality that the country is faced with an unprecedented crisis over the state of the economy, governance and democracy.
The failure of his reshuffled Cabinet to address the country’s multiple crisis is best reflected by the freefall of the Malaysian ringgit, which plunted from 3.814 to the US dollar and 2.7770 to the Singapore dollar when the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was sacked and the Cabinet reshuffled on 28th July 2015 to 4.26 to the US dollar and 3.016 to the Singapore dollar today.
The Sultan of Johor ‘s call for urgent action to address the multiple crisis facing the country should be heeded and I urge the Prime Minister to convene an Emergency meeting of Parliament in the first week of September, which can address the triple issues of:
(I) Economic, Governance and Political Crisis confronting the country;
(ii) fill PAC vacancies including appointing a new PAC Chairman to end the sabotage of parliamentary investigations into the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal; and
(iii) address the nettlesome and unprecedented question whether the nation needs a new PM and new Government.
(Speech at Taman Ungku Tun Aminah (TUTA) Por Tor Dinner at Maedo Restaurant, Skudai, Gelang Patah on Tuesday, August 25, 2015 at 10 pm)