COMMENT | An ominous warning for Malaysia from South Africa

COMMENT | On the back of a sugar sachet at a coffee stop in a supermarket outside Cape Town in South Africa was written the words: “Success in the implementation of reconstruction and development is the sure guarantee of lasting peace and stability.” - Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

But after over 30 years of being freed from prison in 1991, slightly less after achieving political equality for blacks in 1994 by becoming its first democratically elected president, and a decade after his death, the indescribably beautiful country of South Africa remains cruelly far from the dream that the great Mandela envisioned for it and gave his life for, including 27 years in detention.

That’s because the reconstruction and development of the country did not take place as envisaged. While Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) is still in power, its leaders, like many in Third World countries including ours, have succumbed to the temptations of power and sugar-sweet corruption, ignoring the plight of the people that they were fighting for...