VETERAN lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said another reason Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is not the Opposition leader is because of the latter’s dismal record in fighting corruption when he was prime minister.
This is in addition to the previously-listed three reasons Lim had given as to why Muhyiddin did not want to be Opposition leader, which was outlined in an article published on FocusM earlier this month.
In a statement dated Jan 2, 2023, Lim said one reason was that Muhyiddin “did not dare to test his legitimacy with a vote of confidence in Parliament”.
Lim also named Muhyiddin’s move to “illegally and unconstitutionally suspend Parliament” citing a COVID-19 emergency on Jan 12, 2021 and his “abysmal failure” in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in the “longest COVID-19 wave in the world” as reasons why Muhyiddin had shied away from becoming Opposition leader.
“There is a fourth reason why Muhyiddin is not the Parliamentary Opposition leader [and this is due to] his dismal record in fighting corruption when he was the prime minister,” Lim said in a statement today (Jan 20).
“The first Pakatan Harapan (PH) government proved to be a major failure although it may have acquitted itself well in the history books if it had served a full five-year term and was not toppled in 22 months.”
Lim said the first PH government gave Malaysians the best Chinese New Year present in January 2020 when the country had gone up 10 places in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Practice Index (CPI) 2019 compared to 2018 to rank 51st out of 180 countries.
“If the PH government had served full five years till 2023 with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the Prime Minister in the second half of the five-year term, Malaysia would end up as among the 40 top nations in the world in terms of public integrity,” he asserted.
“If the PH government had ruled until the end of the decade, Malaysia would have been among the top 30 countries in the world in the fight against corruption and would have been the best antidote to the atmosphere of doom and gloom that had descended on Malaysia in 2018.”
Lim said the ignominious Sheraton Move political conspiracy had, however, intervened and toppled the PH government in February 2020, and since then, the nation had “continued its decline in the TI-CPIs”.
In the TI-CPI 2020, Malaysia fell in score from 53 points to 51 points, which resulted in six- point fall in ranking from 51st place to the 57th.
“The TI-CPI 2021 was worse. It was a devastating TI-CPI, where Malaysia dropped a further three points in score to 48 out of 100 marks and 5 points in rank to 62nd place,” Lim lamented.
He said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is “dreading the release of the TI-CPI 2022” where Malaysia is “likely to scrape the bottom of the barrel and have the worst TI-CPI ranking and score in country’s 28-year history”.
“The Anwar unity government cannot do anything to influence the outcome of the TI-CPI 2022 which should be released worldwide shortly, but the TI-CPI 2023 will be a testament of its anti-corruption commitment to clean up the country of corruption and kleptocracy provided it can last its first full year in office,” Lim remarked.
“Time is already running for the TI-CPI 2023 and the Anwar unity government must perform on the anti-corruption front, as the last thing Malaysians want is a relapse of the TI-CPI with Muhyiddin returning to the prime minister’s office.” – Jan 20, 2023
