Anwar assured that DAP leadership had never proposed a change of Opposition Leader

Malaysia is surging ahead in the stakes for the most cumulative total of Covid19 cases in the world – leaving China ranked No. 80 behind, beating Bahrain to be ranked No. 78 with 91,969 cases. Today, Malaysia will improve its position to be ranked No. 77 if its daily increase of Covid-19 infections today reaches1,792 cases.

This is not a world achievement that Malaysians can be proud of, just as it is not national honour and glory for Malaysia to scale the heights of a global kleptocracy before the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018.

These are signs that the nation is spiralling quickly downwards to become a kleptocracy, kakistocracy and a failed state.

This is why there is an urgent need for a new national consensus for the Merdeka Constitution 1957, the Malaysian Constitution 1963, the Rukun Negara 1970 and the Vision 2020 promulgated in 1991 have all failed – to the extent that there are now Ministers in the Cabinet who reject these basic documents of Malaysian nation-building.

There must be reset of nation-building policies after these failures.

Six year ago, in December 2014, a group of 25 prominent Malays, comprising former top civil servants, judges, ambassadors and scholars, issued a joint statement calling on the then Prime Minister , Datuk Seri Najib Razak to show leadership as it was time for moderate Malays to speak up as extremist, intolerant and immoderate voices did not speak for Malays.

The group said it was "deeply concerned" and found it necessary to take a public position given the consequences of vitriolic rhetoric on race relations and political stability in the country.

They also called on like-minded moderate Malays and Muslims to speak up for a rational and informed discussion on Islam in the country.

One of the prominent Malays in this group, Ahmad Kamil, a diplomat for 34 years before his retirement as secretary-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.and former special envoy to the prime minister, said

"I do not want my grandchildren to live in a Talibanised country.

"I come from a background of people of different races and we (back then) never questioned who you are. Today, there are so many discordant and divisive issues.

"It is time all of us got up from sitting on our backsides.”

Unfortunately, this call by the 25 prominent Malays six years ago did not result in a new national consensus on nation-building policies, and the nation had to wait for the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 to attempt a reset of nation-building policies.

But the Pakatan Harapan government as too short-lived as it was toppled after 22 months by the Sheraton Move conspiracy which ushered in a backdoor and illegitimate jumbo-sized Muhyiddin Cabinet.

What was the most toxic development in the past 32 months of Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional governments since the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018?

It is the systematic campaign of lies, falsehood and fake news to polarise the racial and religious situation the country by poisoning the Malay mind to make Malays believe that Malay rights, dignity and future were at stake unless UMNO is returned to power for the Pakatan Harapan was nothing but a DAP government and the then Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad nothing but a stooge of DAP, and the lies that DAP was anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Sultans and even “communist”.

As a result, the lines were drawn in the political battlefield – Malaysian politics vs Malay politics.

If the Malays fell hook, line and sinker to the UMNO lies, falsehoods and fake news, the only result is racial and religious polarisation, and all Malaysians, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Ibans and Orang Asli, will be the victims.

This is because Malaysia can only become a world-class great nation if we could leverage on its unique position as the confluence of four great civilisations in the world to build a united, harmonious, democratic, just, prosperous and progressive world-class nation.

If the policies of Malay politics and hegemony had succeeded in the past 50 years to uplift the Malay masses, the ordinary Malays would not be so poor and insecure today that Khoo Boo Teik, a retired professor writing for the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), a think tank at the National University of Singapore, could pen a 19-page paper entitled “Malay Politics: Parlous Condition, Continuing Problems”.

There must be a new beginning for the Malaysian nation=building process with a new national consensus to make Malaysia “a beacon of light in the difficult and distracted world” and not condemn Malaysia to become the Venezuela or Zimbabwe of Asia.

There are those who do not want a new national consensus for Malaysia and are doing their utmost to sabotage its birth.

When I met the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, Anwar Ibrahim, on Friday, I assured him that the DAP leadership had never proposed a change of Opposition Leader, but the Opposition must set forth in a new direction focussing on the need to strengthen and consolidate all opposition forces in the country through a new national consensus.

I am taken aback by the latest statement of the Pakatan Harapan secretary-general as he must speak on behalf of all three parties in Opposition coalition and not for one political party.

Every day, we are shocked by new evidence of Malaysia spiralling down the trajectory of kleptocracy, kakistocracy and a failed state in 2040, whether it be the latest announcement by the Muhyiddin government that it expects to receive the first batch of Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer in February next year – in contrast to Singapore which will begin a widespread vaccination programme in the first week of January with the aged and priority work first, and a target to vaccinate the entire population of 5.3 million as soon as possible – or the fate of the “lost generation”, which former education minister Mazlee Malik attempted to highlight in Parliament about the estimated one million students in Malaysia who will be impacted and sidelined from academic progress, particularly those in pre-school, Primary Year One and Year Two.

As I said yesterday, time and tide waits for no man and the time for action for a new national consensus is now as Malaysia must be spared the fate and ignominy of kleptocracy, kakistocracy and a failed state in 2040.