Malaysia should not get the ignominy as the only country in the world which exploited the Covid-19 Pandemic to lockdown Parliament to avoid oversight and scrutiny to allow massive abuse of powers, rampant corruption, revival of kleptocracy and widespread violation of human rights

Malaysia should not be known as the one country in the world which exploited the Covid-19 pandemic to lockdown Parliament to avoid oversight and scrutiny to allow massive abuse of powers, rampant corruption, revival of kleptocracy and widespread violation of human rights.

Although Malaysia should have been spared the second wave of Covid-19 outbreak, and kept the Covid-19 infection in a low number without any single fatality, we have performed quite well in fighting the invisible war against the pandemic since the imposition of the movement control order (MCO) on March 18.

When Malaysia imposed the MCO on March 18, there were less than a quarter of million Covid-19 confirmed cases in 178 countries and territories and globally less than 9,000 deaths in 70 countries.

In the past 53 days, the Covid-19 pandemic has multiplied over 18 times from 218,910 cases to reach over 4.1 million confirmed cases in 219 countries and territories, while global fatalities multiplied over 31 times from 8,925 deaths to 280,443 deaths in 182 countries.

On 18th March, we were the top 18th country in the world in terms of number of cases, and top 33rd country in terms of Covid-19 deaths. We are now No. 51 in world ranking in terms of number of Covid-19 cases and No. 56 in terms of Covid-19 deaths.

We have avoided the horrors of the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Russia and Brazil – at one time in the United States, the daily increase of Covid-19 cases exceeded 37,000 cases and the daily increase of Covid-19 deaths surpassed 2,500 cases.

But we must make sure that Malaysia does not earn the ignominy from the Covid-19 pandemic as the only country in the world to exploit the pandemic to lockdown Parliament to avoid oversight and scrutiny to allow massive abuse of powers, rampant corruption, revival of kleptocracy and widespread violation of human rights.