TRANSPARENCY International Malaysia (TI-M) has expressed its disappointment with the Government’s recent decision to dissolve the Parliament “not even halfway through the current Parliament budget sitting” as the nation braces itself for the annual floods.
However, in noting that he was “not surprised” TI-M president Dr Muhammad Mohan pointed out that the questionable election strategy is that the dissolution of Parliament came merely days after a proposed Budget 2023 that promised cash handouts and other election goodies.
“The rakyat must understand that the proposed budget hasn’t been passed by Parliament and [whoever wins GE15 to form the federal government] will have to present a new proposal which could be entirely different,” he noted.
According to Muhammad, all the events since February 2020 had been a series of political games, party-hopping, publicity stunts, courtroom delay tactics and national mismanagement which had been fuelled by the shifting majority and alliances in Parliament.
“GE15 will be the first election Malaysians face where no single party holds a majority in Parliament and it is our duty as Malaysians to vote and in voting, reject corrupt leaders,” he added.
“Civil servants have always played a key role in fighting corruption from whistleblowing, investigating, prosecuting, rescuing audit reports and meting out strict and fair punishments to the corrupt.
“The civil service must continue to play this role as the independent facilitators in the conducting and policing of the electoral process, and as voters, to save this nation from a fate of moral and financial bankruptcy.”
Muhammad also said as the check and balance, civil servants must report all forms of extortion, threats, vote-buying, misuse of public resources and machinery, and all abuse of power to the Election Commission and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
“We must remind our elected representatives that a dissolved Parliament is not a dissolved state that is devoid of law and order,” he added. – Oct 12, 2022
