Convene Parliament to mobilise the whole country as one united force to combat and overcome the Covid-19 pandemic to show Malaysia as one of the better performing nations in the world in the Covid-19 pandemic

The de facto Law Minister Takiyuddin Hassan showed his superficial commitment to parliamentary democracy when he maintained that Parliament will only sit when the emergency expires in August and trotted out the argument that Parliament did not sit for two years in a separate emergency in 1969.

He claimed that the government was functioning well even though Parliament has been suspended through an emergency proclamation that came into force on Jan 11.

Takiyuddin is responsible for fake news, for the government had not been functioning well with the suspension of Parliament.

Can he explain why despite more than two months of emergency, the government is still unable to bring under control the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, started by the superspreader event of the Sabah state general election in September?

Why is Malaysia having one of the longest waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in the world, lasting seven long months, and we are still not able to bring the daily increase of new Covid-19 cases to triple-digit and then to double-digit figures?

Yesterday’s daily increase of 1,327 new Covid-19 cases was the 15th day where daily increase of new Covid-19 cases was below 2,000 cases.

Can we ensure that we can register triple-digit figure for the daily increase of new Covid-19 cases in March and double-digit figure in April, bringing the seven-month third wave of Covid-19 pandemic to early September - when we had a daily increase of 62 new Covid-19 cases on Malaysia Day, Sept. 16, 2021?

Can we guarantee that before we bring to the third wave of Covid-19 to double-digit daily increase, there will not be a fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia, rising to higher levels of daily increase of Covid-19 cases than the peak of 5,728 new Covid-19 cases on January 30?

Can we ensure the success of the national Covid-19 vaccination rollout, and even accelerate and complete it by the National Day-Malaysia Day period of August 31- September 16, 2021 so that normality, recovery of the economy and national life can begin?

Why is Malaysia among the worst performing-nations in East Asia and South-East Asia, as reflected by the February 2021 Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking which ranked Malaysia as No. 23, lower than Singapore (3), China (6), Taiwan (7), South Korea (8), Japan (9), Thailand (10), Hong Kong (13), Israel (14), UAE (15), India (16), Saudi Arabia (17) and Vietnam (18)?

Before the emergency was proclaimed on January 11, 2021 Malaysia was ranked No. 22 in the December 2020 Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking.

Did Singapore, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam suspend their Parliaments to fight the Covid-19 pandemic?

The Muhyiddin government is on the wrong track.

I would assert that an important reason why Malaysia is one of the worst performing nations in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic is the suspension of Parliament and the inability of Parliament to play its check-and-balance oversight role over the Executive and to mobilise the nation in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Malaysia would not be reduced to the sorry state we are in today in the war against Covid-19 pandemic, if not for the Sheraton Move which toppled the 22-month Pakatan Harapan government.

The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic should not have happened in Malaysia, and it would not have happened if not for the Sheraton Move which shifted all attention from the Covid-19 pandemic to the conspiracy to topple the duly-elected government of Malaysia.

Furthermore, the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia which we have not brought under control after seven long months should not have been allowed to happen at all.

The Cabinet on Wednesday should listen to the Yang di Pertuan Agong to advise him to convene Parliament in April (especially as all Ministers and MPs have been vaccinated) to mobilise the whole country as one united force to combat and overcome the Covid-19 pandemic to show Malaysia as one of the better performing nations in the world in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Let all political parties and MPs reach an agreement that during the emergency, there will be no no-confidence motion and Parliament will singly focus on the issue as to how to mobilise the nation as one unit to ensure an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach in the war against Covid-19 pandemic, enlisting the active support of the entire civil society – organisations and individuals - so that Malaysia can be one of the better performing nations not only in Asia but in the world.

The year-long Covid-19 pandemic has given rise to several infamous examples in the world, such as:

1. The two nations which scored the highest in the Global Health Security Index and regarded as best positioned to deal with pandemic diseases, the United States and United Kingdom, proved to be the world’s worst countries in the Covid-19 pandemic – the United States topping the nations in the world with over 30.5 million Covid-19 cases and 550,000 fatalities while UK is ranked No. 5 among the worst countries in the world with close to 4.3 million Covid-19 cases and over 126,000 fatalities.
2. The mystery of the death of the Tanzania’s Covid-denying President, John Maqufuli - whether he had died of Covid-19. Magufuli suspended nation-wide tracking of Covid cases, blaming the country’s infection toll on defective test kits. The last reported figures of 509 cases and 21 deaths were in April last year and many believed that Tanzania is fighting a virulent second wave of Covid. Magufuli made no bids for Covid vaccines as he queried its safety and instead promoted the use of prayers, herbal treatments and steam inhalation to combat the disease.
3. Brazil has been setting a series of grisly milestones, repeatedly setting new records for most Covid-19 deaths per day. In the past week, it set another record: 14,492 new deaths and more than 511,209 new cases – outpacing even that of the United States, the only country in the world harder hit by the pandemic in absolute numbers.
4. Europe missed its chance to stop the third wave of the coronavirus epidemic before it got out of control. Now it's paying a high price for it, with new lockdowns being imposed across the continent. A more contagious variant of the virus, known as B.1.1.7, seems to be the common culprit behind the chaos and may also be more deadly.The new wave of higher case numbers isn't limited to Europe. Case numbers have increased 10% globally over the past week to over 3 million new reported cases, according to WHO's latest situation report.

Let Malaysia not get into this international rogues’ gallery in the Covid-19 pandemic where Parliament is suspended not to fight the pandemic, but to preserve the regime and prevent Parliament from spearheading a national mobilisation effort for an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control so as to restore normalcy, economic recovery and national life as early as possible.