The lessons from the 22-month Pakatan Harapan government
Pakatan Harapan must learn the lessons from the 22-month Pakatan Harapan Government whose five-year mandate was cut short by the Sheraton Move conspiracy which brought in a backdoor, undemocratic and illegitimate government.
Some of these lessons are:
- Serious about implementing election pledges.
- Ministers must be honest, trustworthy and have integrity. DAP was demonized as anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Royalty for the proposal to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) at the end of 2018 when it had nothing to do with DAP.
- Be more aware of the power of lies, falsehoods, fake news and disinformation. I was alleged to have said that one must learn Jawi to be a Malaysian and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng accused of declaring that he was not a Chinese when these were downright lies.
- Political parties in Pakatan Harapan should not interfere in the affairs of another member party.
- The Prime Minister and Cabinet must have a Pakatan Harapan coalition mindset and framework. In the 22-month PH government, the Prime Minister was acting in the old mode of Barisan Nasional governments when there should be a new mode, mindset and framework.
Early in the Pakatan Harapan Government, it was the Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who said that the manifesto was not a bible.
As a result, even if 80 or 90 per cent of the election pledges had been implemented in the five-year mandate, damage had been done. It was worse when the five-year mandate of the PH government was cut short in 22 months by the Sheraton Move conspiracy.
Saifuddin Abdullah, who was the Foreign Minister at the time, in reply to Anthony Loke, said he was not the Minister responsible for trying to ratify ICERD. Will Saifuddin reveal who was the Minister responsible or is he more prepared to see an increase in his “trust deficit”?