OPPOSITION MUST QUICKLY FORM SHADOW CABINET TO OFFER HOPE TO END EMERGENCY

The Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Emergency is an irresponsible and desperate act.

By claiming business as usual and shutting down the Parliament and preventing elections, the PM is not fighting Covid-19.

He is assaulting democracy to save his own job, and in doing so harming millions of jobs after the market crashes in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) yesterday and harming the livelihoods for millions of households, which is likely to get worst as the emergency progresses throughout the coming eight months.

Therefore putting Malaysia under Emergency for eight months will greatly damage our economy. Muhyiddin and his ministers who support the Emergency are collectively destroying market confidence, and chasing away investments, both foreign and domestic, by creating a double crisis in economy and politics.

More than ever before, the Opposition must rise up the occasion to be an alternative to Muhyiddin’s reckless politics.

Pakatan Harapan (PH) Plus must be ready to shoulder the responsibility to restore our economy when Muhyiddin’s adventurism and misgovernance cross the red line beyond what the Malaysian public and sober parliamentarians in the government can tolerate.

That day will surely come. We just don’t know how soon. But when it comes, PH Plus must be ready.

I would like to say PH Plus is ready to save Malaysia but I would then be lying. The truth is PH Plus has wasted 10 months after the Sheraton Move. We did not have A shadow Cabinet despite having about 40 ex-ministers and ex-deputy ministers. We could not even produce a Shadow Budget before November 6. I am ashamed.

I do not want to point my finger at any of my parliamentary colleagues because I, too, am guilty of doing too little. I can only offer my apologies to all Malaysians who feel let down.

Waking up on the first morning after Muhyiddin’s Emergency, I feel the anxiety, anguish and anger of my fellow Malaysians who see no hope in our government and politics.

I want to make two simple calls.

To the Opposition Leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, I plead with you to get a shadow cabinet organised within a week, and immediately work out the Opposition’s alternative policies on the pandemic and economy. Please chair the PH Plus Shadow Cabinet’s first meeting next Wednesday, on Zoom.

It’s time we stop our repeated attacks on the backdoor government. Instead, we must work hard on offering better policies and delivery so we can walk in from the frontdoor with a strong, formidable and convincing majority after 15th General Election (GE15) .

To my parliamentary colleagues Ahmad Jazlan, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and other old friends in Barisan Nasional (BN) who are abandoning Muhyiddin not because they have ongoing court cases, I urge you to join us in PH Plus to discuss alternative policies for post-Muhyiddin and post-PN Malaysia.

Whether we would sit next to each other in the future, as parliamentarians, we have a duty to offer workable and broad-based policies for millions of suffering Malaysians when the PM damages their livelihoods just to save his job.

I sincerely plead with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and my wise friends in BN to work out alternative policies to save the economy from Muhyiddin’s Emergency.

Malaysians deserve some reliable hope as dark clouds gather on our sky.