Three bad news for Malaysia in one day - when will the fall of Malaysia end?

Firstly, there was the report that Malaysia’s mobile internet connnection experience is at the bottom at the global and regional level, according to several global research reports.

Among 100 countries, Malaysia ranked lower than Asean neighbours Vietnam, Thailand, and even poverty-stricken Laos when it came to “Best Mobile Experience” related to 4G LTE wireless broadband speeds, based on global independent data company Tutela’s report recently.

The Tutela report titled “Global Mobile Experience: Country-level Comparison”, ranked Malaysia at 81, three notches below Indonesia’s 78.

Laos is number 75 on the ranking, below Thailand’s 74 and Vietnam’s 50. Meanwhile, Singapore is among the best 20 in the world at the 17th spot.

How low has Malaysia fallen.

Twenty-six years ago in 1995, Malaysia proclaimed the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) as "a gift to the world" and the centrepiece of the country's strategic initiative to leapfrog the nation into the IT era to become one of the world IT powers.

Since then, MSC and Malaysia have faded away from the world radar screen as an international IT hotspot – with Malaysia’s unchecked plunge in IT international competitiveness in the past two-and-a-half decades.

This was confirmed by the 2009 Oxford/Cisco Global Broadband Quality Score on global state of broadband quality which put Malaysia 53rd out of 66 countries in terms of the quality and reach of its networks – understandably behind countries like Korea, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, United States but also trailing countries Malaysia should be leading like Turkey, Chile, China, Qatar, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Bahrain, Thailand, Tunisia, Mexico, Philippines and UAE.

According to network quality reports between May-July this year by mobile analytics company OpenSignal and finance house JP Morgan, Digi had the highest download speed in Malaysia at 15.0 Mbps, followed by Maxis (13.4), U Mobile (11.5), Unifi (11.0), and Celcom (8.2).

In East Asia, South Korea enjoys an average download speed of 61.3 Mbps, followed by Japan at 40.4 Mbps, and Taiwan at 27.4 Mbps.

The second bad news is the inability of Malaysia to end the 14-month third Covid-19 wave in Malaysia since the Sabah general election in September last year.

Yesterday Indonesia recorded 451 daily new Covid-19 cases and 13 daily Covid-19 deaths, as compared to 5,755 daily new Covid-19 cases and 37 daily Covid-19 deaths for Malaysia, marking the 112nd consecutive day since August 18 when Indonesia recorded less daily new Covid-19 cases and the 51st consecutive day since Oct. 5 less daily Covid-19 deaths than Malaysia.

The cumulative totals for Malaysia yesterday were 2,602,855 Covid-19 cases and 30,147 (including 6,096 Brought-in-Dead) Covid-19 deaths.

The third bad news for Malaysia is that the household appliance manufacturer Dyson has dumped Malaysian supplier ATA IMS Bhd, after allegations of forced labour and a subsequent audit.

The shares of ATA, which is already in the spotlight in the US, plummeted 30%. While ATA did not comment on Dyson’s move, it has previously stated that Dyson accounted for 80% of its business.

According to Dyson, it was tipped off about forced labour by a whistle-blower, prompting it to launch an investigation.

How long can Malaysia take these body-blows and remain internationally competitive?

We tried to call on the voters of Malacca to use the recently-concluded Malacca general election to launch a “Centennial Save Malaysia Campaign” for Malaysia to stop the regression of the past half-a-century and to become a world-class great nation by before 2057.

Many felt a sense of disappointment, hopelessness and even desolation that the 22-month Pakatan Harapan government had not introduced many institutional and structural reforms and changes in Malaysia, ignoring the fact that the PH government had a five-year mandate.

It was robbed of the five-year mandate by the Sheraton Move conspiracy which ushered in two backdoor, illegitimate and undemocratic governments under two Prime Ministers, Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri.

One fact is undeniable. Malaysia had not lived up to its promise to be a world-class great nation as Malaysia had been overtaken by one country after another in the past half-century – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam.

If Malaysia does not wake up and bestir itself to greater accomplishments, in a decade or two, young Malaysians will be going to Indonesia to find work instead of the other way around.

Malaysia cannot become a world-class great nation in a year or two, or even in a decade or two. It is going to be a great challenge for Malaysia to become a world-class great nation in 36 years’ time in 2057.

I had called on the voters of Malacca to use the Malacca general election on November 20, 2021 to launch a “Centennial Save Malaysia Campaign“ for Malaysia to stop the regression of the past half-a-century and to become a world-class great nation by 2057.

But this message to the Malacca voters was a failure.

Is it too late to save Malaysia by 2057 for it to become a world-class great nation?

Lim Kit Siang MP for Iskandar Puteri