KUALA LUMPUR – Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun is gravely mistaken for describing former prime minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as an “overlooked reformist,” which “many choose to overlook, for whatever reason they may have”, according to DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang.
Lim, in a statement today, said Muhyiddin’s “many failures” do not warrant him being granted the grand title of “overlooked reformist.”
“Azhar is dead wrong when he said that Muhyiddin ‘never asked for the job’ of prime minister,” he said, referring to a remark made by Azhar at the launch of the book Muhyiddin Yassin: Leading a Nation in Unprecedented Crisis yesterday.
“I should know because Muhyiddin had asked me for DAP support to be prime minister way back in July 2016 – the cloak-and-dagger meeting at Le Meridien Hotel in Kuala Lumpur – but I declined to do so as DAP was committed to (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim as the prime minister candidate.”
The Iskandar Puteri MP went on to list Muhyiddin’s alleged failures, pointing out the infamous Sheraton Move, which stole the people’s mandate in the 14th general election and toppled the then Pakatan Harapan government.
He also did not pass up the opportunity to lambast Muhyiddin for declaring an “illegal” and unconstitutional six-month emergency period and the latter’s failure to impose emergency rule.
“The beginning of more than two years of (the) Covid-19 pandemic, where Malaysia had the worst health minister in the world and Malaysia plunged from a country with a good record to a country with one of the worst records in the world in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
“His failure to ‘Malaysianise’ his political thinking to graduate from a ‘Malay-first’ to a ‘Malaysian-first’ political leader and the largest, most-bloated cabinet of 32 ministers, 38 deputy ministers and four special envoys with ministerial rank.”
“But Muhyiddin’s political life, which culminated in his becoming the seventh prime minister, but with the shortest term of 17 months, had one saving factor – his uncompromising position against the 1MDB scandal, for which he was dismissed as deputy prime minister in July 2015 and later sacked from Umno in June 2016 by (Datuk Seri) Najib Razak,” he said.
Aside from labelling Muhyiddin as a failed education minister when he held the position – citing the former prime minister’s Education Blueprint 2013-2025 for Malaysia to be above the global average and be in the top one-third of countries in international education standards by 2025 – Lim said the battle against corruption was also a flop.
“When Muhyiddin was prime minister, Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released its TI CPI 2020 in January 2021, and there was a drop in score from 53 points to 51 points, which resulted in a six-point fall in ranking from No. 51 to 57.
“In January 2022, the TI CPI 2021 was announced under a new prime minister, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri (Yaakob), and the score fell five points to 48 and the ranking fell another 11 points in ranking to 61.
“Malaysia is likely to fall to the lowest score and rank since 1995 when the TI CPI 2022 is announced in January 2023.
“Malaysia was doing quite well in the fight against (the) Covid-19 pandemic in the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the situation deteriorated badly after that period.”
The DAP veteran said it is far from the truth for myth-makers who claim that Muhyiddin’s administration had passed its greatest test in the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that in fact it was the reverse.
“The Covid-19 pandemic had in fact provided the Muhyiddin government an opportunity to hide its weaknesses and internal contradictions.
“But thanks to the frontliners and to Malaysians who rallied behind the government because of the enormity of a Covid-19 disaster, we have survived despite the unnecessary deaths of 35,956 people and (the) infection of over 4.6 million people.” – The Vibes, July 30, 2022
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