Zahid Hamidi should not stand as a candidate in the 15th General Election if his claim that Ismail Sabri would be Prime Minister if UMNO-BN coalition wins the the general election is to be believed
The UMNO President, Zahid Hamidi said that Ismail Sabri would be the Prime Minister if the UMNO-BN coalition wins the 15th General Election on 19th November 2022.
I do not think that Ismail Sabri fully trusts Zahid Hamidi, but he has to pretend he is the “poster-boy” to be the Prime Minister of the UMNO-BN coalition after the 15th General Election.
It is not that Zahid had not broken his pledge on the election “election poster-boy” before an election, and after the election, the “poster-boy” was completely abandoned.
Who will believe that this will not happened in the 15th General Election?
The only way that Zahid Hamidi can guarantee that if the UMNO-BN coalition wins the 15GE that Ismail Sabri would become the Prime Minister is for Zahid Hamidi not to stand as a parliamentary candidate in the 15th General Election on Nomination Day on 5th November 2022.
We will see on Nov. 5 whether Zahid is a parliamentary candidate or not, as so long as he is a parliamentary candidate, Ismail Sabri cannot be sure that he would be Prime Minister if UMNO-BN coalition forms the next Federal government of Malaysia – unless Zahid is defeated in the 15 GE.
The 15th General Election is a parliamentary election to form the Federal Government in Malaysia and not to form the State Government in Sarawak.
At present, there are only three coalitions which could form the Federal Government in Putrajaya after the 15GE polling on November 19, 2022: firstly, the UMNO-Barisan Nasional coalition, secondly the Perikatan Nasional coalition of Bersatu and PAS; and thirdly, the Pakatan Harapan coalition of PKR, DAP, Amanah and UPKO.
The candidates for the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia are quite clear: Zahid Hamidi or Ismail Sabri of the UMNO/BN coalition; Muhyiddin Yassin or Hadi Awang of the Perikatan Nasional coalition of Bersatu and PAS or Anwar Ibrahim of the Pakatan Harapan coalition.
There is no doubt that from the slate of candidates for the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim is a superior candidate as compared to Zahid Hamidi or Ismail Sabri of UMNO/BN coalition, Muhyiddin Yassin or Hadi Awang of the Perikatan Nasional coalition.
The Malaysian voters rejected the UMNO-BN coalition in the 14GE in 2018, because the UMNO/BN leaders have betrayed the original nation-building principles of Malaysia to be a great world-class plural nation and, in the words of Bapa Malaysia Tunku Abdul Rahman, to be “a beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world”.
Instead of being “a beacon of light in a difficult and distracted world”, we had added to the “darkness” in the world by becoming a “kleptocracy at its worst” with not only the monstrous 1MDB scandal, but many other financial scandals with the latest the RM9 billion littoral combatant ships (LCS) scandal.
What is worse, the UMNO/BN coalition stands for “Ketuanan Melayu”, when after six decades of Malaysian nation-building, we should be talking about “Ketuanan Malaysia” and “Malaysian First” although we remain Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Dayaks.
Zahid Hamidi claims that the UMNO/BN coalition has achieved great things for Malaysia, then let him explain the following developments:
1. In 1965, one Singapore dollar was worth one Malaysian ringgit. After sixty years, one Singapore dollar is now worth RM3.3 Malaysian ringgit. Does Zahid call this progress?
2. Since the early years of nationhood, we have lost out to Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Vietnam? At the rate we are going, to will lose to many other nations? Why is this so?
3. When Transparency International (TI) started its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 1995, we were way ahead of China, India and Indonesia. Since then, China, India and Indonesia have closed the gap of a clean and honest government, and it is likely that China will overtake Malaysia in the TI CPI in this decade, and India and Indonesia will overtake Malaysia in the next decade. Why is this so?
4. We had good schools and universities in the early decades, but they now lose out to other countries with Malaysia in the bottom third of world in maths and science education.
Do we want Muhyiddin the “back-stabber” or Hadi Awang, the extremist Islamist to be Prime Minister – Hadi who says that corruption among Muslims is all right but not among the non-Muslims?
The other two coalitions do not embrace Malaysia as a plural society of diverse races, languages, religions and cultures. Only Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan embrace the concept that Malaysia must be for all races and religions who have made a home in Malaysia, that in fact, for Malaysia to become a great world-class plural nation, we must unite all races, religions and regions in the country.
This is why Anwar Ibrahim is the superior candidate to be the 10th Prime Minister as compared to the other candidates from the other two coalitions – UMNO/BN and Perikatan Nasional.