Arise and shine, Malaysia

COMMENT | Please stop being angry. Bangkitlah dan bersinar Malaysia, we the people, must arise and shine to save our country from the thieving lawmakers and traitors.

New Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has yet to be congratulated or recognised by any of the 193 nation-states of the United Nations except for Singapore. This is indicative of his legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

After one week in office, he has not been able to appoint his cabinet. By any definition, he is a ruling alone, and the country is run by the civil service and not by the executive arm of the government. Contrast this with Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He appointed his cabinet on May 13, 2018, three days after being sworn in.

At the very least Muhyiddin must not waste more time and immediately appoint a new health minister to tackle the spread of Covid-19 in the country, which has swelled to 93 patients last Saturday.

Time is not on his side. He is a cancer survivor, having been treated in Singapore for pancreatic cancer in October 2018, five months after he was appointed to the cabinet by Mahathir, who was the PM then. We wish him well in his recovery, but we also urge him not to waste any more time.

Muhyiddin’s support by fellow lawmakers is very much in doubt, even though he told the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (photo) that he commands support from the majority of lawmakers. The King did an unprecedented headcount himself, and even a second count, before deciding to appoint Muhyiddin as the PM. Muhyiddin went through the back door and the dark of the night and then went through the front gates of the palace the next moment. That’s history now. We need to move on.

We still have a remedy through the legislative. Muhyiddin must be persuaded and even pressured to convene the Dewan Rakyat as soon as possible to secure the support of the majority of the 222 Members of Parliament through a confidence vote. Until this is done, Muhyiddin’s legitimacy remains very much in doubt.

But instead of doing this, he has postponed the next sitting of Parliament by more than two months. Is he running scared to face a confidence vote or is he plotting something nefarious with his partners in crime namely, Umno and PAS? The postponement suggests he does not have the numbers to be PM.

Muhyiddin has indicated that the cabinet he would appoint would be people of integrity and with a clean track record. Umno leaders are far from Muhyiddin’s ideal candidates. Its president, a second-generation Malaysian whose father was a Javanese, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, is facing ongoing criminal trials for corruption and a whole catalogue of alleged wrongdoings that, if found guilty, would probably be in jail for the rest of his life.

Lurking in the shadow is Umno’s disgraced former leader and former PM Najib Abdul Razak (photo), who is also currently facing criminal trials. He is also under investigation for money laundering and much else by at least six countries. There is also the dirty dozen in Umno. So how can Muhyiddin find clean people in Umno to be in his cabinet?

PAS is also a headache. Just two months ago, it's Arabised and turbaned leader Abdul Hadi Awang warned Muslims to place their trust in Muslim leaders regardless of their wickedness, claiming that believers will end up in hell if led by non-Muslims.

On his Facebook post “Rule of Law: Where is Allah?” last Saturday, the PAS president stressed the importance of religion in keeping the law and the importance for Islam to reign supreme in the governance of the country.

So, would PAS ignore the “wickedness” or corrupt acts of Umno? We should also ask Hadi whether Islam or the Federal Constitution is the supreme law in the country.

Are we to understand that non-Muslims cannot be appointed to the cabinet? If so, why are the two or three MCA and MIC lawmakers salivating with hope to sneak into Muhyiddin’s cabinet until they run out of tissue paper to clean up their drool?

There’s still hope.

Civil society organisations like the Bar Council, Bersih, Maju, Sisters in Islam, G25, Lawyers for Liberty, the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) and the like, must be the catalyst.

But there is no point in calling for fresh elections. In fact, we should petition lawmakers and the King not to dissolve Parliament to make way for a fresh general election. There are a few reasons.

There is still the legislative option of tabling a vote of confidence on Muhyiddin. If he fails, then we should petition the King to appoint a new PM. There is no need to dissolve Parliament, which is already halfway through its term. I used to joke that Thailand has a coup every other Friday. Now the joke is on us. We change our PM every Sunday morning.

Additionally, the rapid spread of Covid-19 may severely curtail electioneering if a fresh election is called as voters may be quarantined or may have to avoid crowded events like political campaigning. Moreover, a fresh election may be too costly at a time when we need to allocate more funding to fight the spread of Covid-19. The Election Commission has estimated it may cost more than RM700 million to conduct a new election.

Another reason against a fresh election is that with Umno and PAS stridently whipping up racial and religious hysteria against non-Malays/non-Muslims, the police may not have adequate resources to contain any spontaneous or engineered violence and civil unrest. Our social fabric is nearing bursting at its seams. Let’s not tear it. Our beloved country is worth saving.

Bangkitlah dan bersinar, Malaysia. Let us all together arise and shine. We are not alone. We can do it. We did it in GE14, let’s do it again.

Let me end by a call to prayer. Let us ask God to give us righteous lawmakers. Remember when we prayed in 2018? Mahathir couldn’t believe that Pakatan Harapan won. Najib likewise couldn’t believe his Umno-led BN lost. God showed up. Former senior Umno leader and minister, Rafidah Aziz, summed it up nicely: “God heard our collective prayer.”

If you feel there is nothing else you can do, may I encourage you to pray for the nation? Who knows, God may just show up again. “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people” - so arise and shine. God bless Malaysia, O tanah airku.

BOB TEOH is a retired journalist who feels be cannot be a bystander and watch the nation go to the dogs, but to come out to write this piece for the sake of justice and righteousness.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.