In a New Malaysia, Malaysia must be a world top-class nation which is capable of transforming itself from a global kleptocracy into a leading nation of integrity in the top one-fifth bracket of 35 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI)
Malaysians made history in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 and many were moved to tears as the overwhelming majority of Malaysians, whether inside the country or spread worldwide in the Malaysian Diaspora, had not expected to see such change within their lifetime.
Malaysia had been given a second chance to re-set the nation-building process as we had lost our way in the past six decades, not only losing out to other nations which had been behind us in different indices of nation-building, but getting trapped in a trajectory which can only end in Malaysia becoming a failed state, a rogue democracy, a kakistocracy and global kleptocracy!
Malaysians lament how backward was China when they visited the country 30 to 40 years ago but today, China is more developed and advanced than Malaysia in almost every aspect of nation-building!
In the early days of the nation, Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman envisioned Malaysia to be “a beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world” but instead of living up to Tunku’s vision, we became a “black hole” of rogue democracy, kakistocracy and global kleptocracy.
Not many nations are given a second chance to make amends and re-set nation-building policies to achieve our vision of greatness during the founding of the nation.
We must not waste our “second chance” to make Malaysia a great nation, to be “a beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world” – a New Malaysia of greater national unity, integrity, democracy, rule of law, excellence, justice and prosperity, where we can leverage on the assets of the diverse races, religions, languages, cultures and civilizations which meet in confluence in Malaysia to form the basis for a new civilization based on the best values and assets of the world’s great religions and civilizations.
A New Malaysia is struggling to be born, as we have only taken the first step on May 9, 2018 to build a New Malaysia, which is a great and noble task which will take a decade or two to accomplish.
We want to realise the vision of Malaysia as a great nation, not only on May 9, when we felt proud as Malaysians and showed the world not to lose hope in democracy as a form a government at a time when democracy was in facing a world crisis of confidence.
We also want to be a world top-class nation in other fields of human endeavour.
One immediate challenge for Malaysia to be a world top-class nation is to transform Malaysia from a global kleptocracy into a leading nation of integrity in the top one-fifth bracket of 35 countries in Transparency International’s (TI) annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
It is not just the Pakatan Harapan Federal Government, but the 30 million Malaysians, who must declare an all-out war against corruption, abuses of power and all forms of malpractices.
Today, Malaysia is placed in the lowly 62nd ranking of TI CPI 2017 with a score of 47 out of 100.
The best CPI score Malaysia achieved was in 1996 when we recorded 5.32 out of 10, and the best CPI ranking was in 1995 when we were ranked No. 23 out of 41 countries.
Why had Malaysia’s record of public integrity and honest government collapsed during Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s nine-year premiership when other countries like Indonesia and China had improved by leaps and bounds?
Today, Malaysia’s record of public integrity have been marred not only by the international 1MDB corruption and money-laundering scandal, and other mini-1MDB like corruption scandals in government and public institutions like Felda, Tabung Haji and MARA.
Recently, there was uncovered another aspect of grand corruption in Malaysia, when an unfortunate death from a helicopter crash revealed that an UMNO leader had left a humoungous estate of RM2.1 billion, which is the subject of estate litigation of his relatives.
This cannot be an isolated incident. How many UMNO leaders have billion-ringgit wealth secretly stashed away unknown to the public, as they would qualify to be among the richest Malays and Malaysians if their secret hoarding of massive wealth had been known.
How many of the UMNO/BN leaders are secret billionaires in Malaysia?
Malaysia’s TI CPI ranking and score would have taken a further nosedive if such corruption and malpractices had been known, which is why there is a need for an all-out war against corruption in a New Malaysia.