15th General Election is a battle between the past and the future – a kleptocracy, kakistocracy and a failed state ala-Sri Lanka on Malaysia’s Centennial versus Malaysia as a world-class great plural nation on Malaysia’s Centennial

The die is cast.

Parliament has been dissolved for the holding of the 15th General Election.

The 15th General Election is a battle between the past and the future – a kleptocracy, kakistocracy and a failed state ala-Sri Lanka on Malaysia’s Centennial versus Malaysia as a world-class great plural nation on Malaysia’s Centennial.

Malaysians must decide whether they want to go back to the past – which saw the second richest country in Asia in the early years of the nation regressing down the decades, losing out to Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Vietnam and on verge of losing out to China, Indonesia and India – and be brave and courageous to build a new future by a reset and return to the founding nation-building principles and policies entrenched in the Constitution and the Rukun Negara but which have been forgotten by the nation’s government leaders – constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, separation of powers, rule of law, an independent judiciary, good governance, public integrity with minimum corruption, meritocracy, respect for human rights 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.

The choice will not be an easy one.

For the toxic politics and race, which had poisoned Malaysian politics in the past six-and-a-half decades, will do their worst in the information era with its instantaneous fake news and false information.

But all is not bleak and totally hopeless.

Just as the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 achieved a political miracle and toppled the invincible UMNO-BN coalition, does August 23, 2022 provides hope that the 15th General Election can achieve another political miracle for a reset and return to the original nation-building principles and policies entrenched in the Constitution and the Rukun Negara for the five-member Federal Court joined four other judges to unanimously sent former Prime Minister Najib Razak to jail for corruption offences, but provided evidence that the restoration of the rule of law and an independent judiciary is not a mirage but a work-in-progress.

It is a powerful proof that Malaysia has emerged from the four decades of darkness when the principles of the separation of power, the rule of law and an independent judiciary were under a cloud to the extent that an independent mission to Malaysia led by the International Commission of Jurists once came out with a report on “Justice in Jeopardy” in Malaysia!

Malaysians must now make a choice – to vote for a viable future or return to the infamous past.