Perikatan Nasional’s Pahang chairperson Saifuddin Abdullah has called for a political ceasefire between the BN/PN and the opposition parties to ensure that Malaysia is able to focus on containing the Covid-19 pandemic and reviving the economy.
“I feel that from now until the 15th general election, we need time to calm down and there should be some kind of political ceasefire among the politicians,” the foreign minister told a press conference at Wisma Putra today.
“We should have some kind of political ceasefire so that all of us – the government and the opposition – will have some peace of mind for us to focus on our work, dealing with pandemic and to revive the economy,” he said.
How very convenient this call for ‘Unity’ is for the fractious and divided minority PN coalition.
UMNO and its fellow losers from the last election were all guns blazing against the prior government themselves when they engineered a coup through bribery and blackmail to up-turn the stable elected government. However, now they would like an end to opposition, an end to frogging and an end to any criticism of their failing management of Covid.
Their own upturning of the previous elected government has meant that Malaysia entered a state of chaos just as Covid hit and for the best part of two years PN’s hopelessly divided, corrupt and incompetent coalition of rivalling former political enemies have held onto power only by slamming shut Parliament and effectively silencing all criticism of their failures.
The result has been disastrous for Malaysia and the people have suffered exponentially more than they would have done lead by the government that held a strong majority before the coup.
Now, after yet more infighting has distracted this PN coup coalition from its proper duties, resulting in a change of leader but little more, these fellows with their wafer thin majority want to be allowed to govern without the opposition to hold it to account. They are demanding a so-called ‘Unity’ government in the name of tackling Covid.
Yet this lack of opposition is exactly what they have benefited from for all the past 24 months, having closed down Parliament and claimed emergency powers to shut out scrutiny and prevent any challenge on the excuse of Covid.
It didn’t do the country any good then and it won’t now either – PN have demonstrated how they govern in the absence of an opposition for long enough. It didn’t work.