Most important question in Malaysia today is not who will win the next general election, but whether Malaysia will become a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in four decades from now, becoming an even greater kleptocracy

The general election drums are becoming louder and louder.

The “court cluster” wants the 15th general election to be held now, before any of its members is sent to Sungei Buloh Prison for corruption and abuse of power.

The Prime Minister, Ismail Sabri, is fighting a bitter rearguard battle both because he does not want to be the Prime Minister in Malaysia with the shortest tenure and because he is not convinced he will be Prime Minister again even if UMNO win a majority of parliamentary seats.

But the most important question in Malaysia today is not who will win the next general election, but whether Malaysia will become a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in four decades from now.

What is the use of winning the 15th General Election if the Malaysia continues to regress and lose out to more countries, ending up with Malaysia becoming a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial in another four decades, becoming an even greater kleptocracy?

When Malaya, now Malaysia, achieved her independence in 1957, Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman expressed the hope that the new nation would become “a beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world”?

We are now in the 65th year of our nation-building.

Are we achieving Tunku’s vision of Malaysia being “a beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world” or have we lost this vision and contribute to the world becoming a more “difficult and distracted world” by becoming a kleptocracy?

In 1971, the second Prime Minister, Tun Razak introduced the Rukun Negara and the NEP.

Veteran economist , a founder of Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) and ex-UMNO MP, Tan Sri Kamal Salih has called for the abolition of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and to replace it with a needs-based policy to overhaul the economy.

He said: “Only 10%, who are the rich, have benefited from the NEP. The rest, such as the M20 and B40, are struggling. The income disparity continues to widen after the pandemic.”

Kamal pointed out that there are an estimated 800,000 unemployed Malaysians, of whom about 30% are graduates who have ‘nowhere to go’”.

He also said about 90% workers in Malaysia have mismatched jobs, with people being in the wrong positions or line of work.

“We need to overcome this. Also too much political interference in the economy. It is counterproductive.”

Nazir Razak, the son of Malaysia’s second prime minister who was the architect of the New Economic Policy (NEP) Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, said many of the principles in the NEP no longer work and have instead led to dysfunctional politics and growing divisions among Malaysia’s communities.

He said the status quo was quickly becoming untenable and asked if the country’s leaders had the initiative to develop and implement new political, economic, and social systems as the NEP was not meant to be a permanent solution.

Former Minister, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz has said that assistance should be given to those in need, and not just to bumiputeras, but to all Malaysians regardless of race.

She said she had lost count of all the new companies who get paid vast amounts of money but the people don’t see results.

She asked how long the bumiputeras were going to use crutches.

It has become a mark of Malaysia’s failure to build a united nation from our diverse people, languages, cultures and civilizations that meet in confluence in Malaysia that if a non-Malay had said the NEP had failed, he would be instantly branded as anti-Malay.

There is a need for more Malay leaders, scholars and intellectuals to speak up and to ask “What Went Wrong?” that Malaysia cannot fulfil its potential to become a world-class great nation but suffer from a grave denial syndrome that there are powerful and influential leaders who even deny that Malaysia had become a kleptocracy?

Former Perlis Mentri Besar and former Dewan Negara President, Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Pawanteh said Malaysia is on track to become the worst country in the world unless its custodians change how they conduct themselves in leading the nation.

He said the ills – from healthcare, to the economy and politics – afflicting the country will worsen unless a determined sense of change takes place soon.

He blamed it on the education system, which has failed to produce the right type of leaders for the new age of globalisation and emergence of great threats, such as Covid-19.

We have failed to achieve Vision 2020 to be an united and developed nation, a Bangsa Malaysia, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient.

We have failed to achieve the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 to achieve above global average and be in top one-third of countries in international education standards.

The 1Malaysia slogan has been overtaken by the 1MDB scandal.

We have increased our national per capita income by 30-fold from 1970 to the present day but we have increased by more than 63,000-fold the corruption and financial scandals in this period, as illustrated RM100 million Bank Rakyat scandal in 1979, the RM2.5 billion Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal in 1983 and the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal in the last decade.

In the past half-a-century, Malaysia lost out to Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Will we lose out China and Indonesia before the end of this decade in the annual Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI)?

Will we lose out to more countries in economic development, even to Indonesia and the Philippines, come 2,040 or 2,050 – well before Malaysia’s Centennial?

Can we return to the nation-building policies and principles in our Constitution and Rukun Negara – constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, rule of law, good governance, public integrity, respect for human rights, Islam as the religion of the nation and freedom of worship for all other religions and national unity from our multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural diversity where there are no first-class and second-class citizens whether based on race, religion or region?

“What Went Wrong?” should be a question asked by every patriotic Malaysian, regardless of race, religion, region, age or gender if Malaysia is to fulfil her potential to be a world-class great nation.

The NEP is supposed to have life span of 20 years from 1970-1990. Who sabotaged NEP and ensured its failure as the overwhelming majority of the Malays remain poor?

Probably, the greatest wrong was in continuing the corruption, abuses of power and breaches of trust in the NEP in 1990 until Malaysia became the “kleptocracy at its worst” with the monstrous mega multi-billion 1MDB scandal instead of replacing it by a needs-based policy declaring a war against poverty regardless of race, religion or region.

Where have Malaysia nation-building gone wrong?

This is why I propose that all political parties, NGOs, organisations, youth associations and student clubs should hold “What Went Wrong?” sessions throughout the country to find out why Malaysia, in more than six decades of nation-building, failed to achieve her potential to become a world-class great nation and what is the way forward.

More important than when the next general election will be held is whether Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, gender or age, will speak up truthfully and sincerely, “What Went Wrong?” in Malaysia’s nation-building in the last 65 years, whether Malaysia can avert becoming a failed state before Malaysia’s Centennial and the way forward.