We need to save Sabah to save Malaysia

MP SPEAKS | Firstly, I want to make two announcements with regard to the 14th general election as both Parliament and the Sabah State Assembly have been dissolved.

DAP Sabah will field two women candidates in the GE14 – Jannie Lasimbang who will be DAP candidate for Kapayan state seat and Noorita Sual who will be the DAP candidate for the parliamentary seat of Tenom.

Jannie, head of DAP Sabah Wanita and former Suhakam commissioner, has brought international renown to Sabah and Malaysia, as she was president of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact and co-ordinator of Partners
of Community Organisation, Sabah.

Noorita, who was a DAP candidate in the 13th general election in 2013, is the first Murut woman lawyer in the country.

The 14th general election is shaping up to be a titanic electoral battle in Malaysia.

Caretaker Prime Minister and BN chairperson Najib Abdul Razak unveiled the BN manifesto, themed “Bersama BN Hebatkan Negaraku” (With BN for a greater Malaysia).

The BN manifesto is wrong and misleading as “Bersama BN” will not “Hebatkan Negaraku” but “Hancurkan Negaraku”.

In over half a century of nation-building, instead of becoming a great nation admired and respected by the world for our accomplishments in various fields of human endeavor, we have lost our way and is
scorned and looked askance by the world as we have become a global kleptocracy.

This is highlighted by the latest Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2017 where Malaysia fell to the lowest ranking of No 62 out of 180 countries, which is the lowest ranking in 23 years.

Do we have a great prime minister?

How can Malaysians be proud of a prime minister who is just a copycat of US President Donald Trump whose campaign theme was “Make America Great Again”?

Furthermore, Najib also "copied" Trump’s use of an "anti-fake news" campaign not to combat fake news based on lies and false information but to impose a new form of censorship to suppress reports about
abuses of power and corruption, in particular, the 1MDB scandal.

Trump has the dubious honour of scoring the lowest popularity rating of below 40 percent in his first year as US president, but an international magazine last year listed five world leaders who have lower popularity rating than Trump – Najib was one of these five world leaders.

Do we have a great Parliament?

The 13th Parliament had degenerated into a great farce, as illustrated by its last six days which I attended daily and diligently, but the speaker and deputy speakers cannot see me, and I cannot participate in parliamentary debates and my vote was not counted during parliamentary votings.

It would appear that I have become a parliamentary “ghost”.

I had been an MP for 10 terms from 1969 to 2018, except for the 10th Parliament from 1999 to 2004, spanning 45 years from 1969. However, I have not felt so ashamed as an MP than in the 13th Parliament.

It is not because I was suspended twice, and for six months each, demanded answers and accountability over the 1MDB scandal, but because Malaysia became known as a global kleptocracy during the tenure of the 13th Parliament.

I call on Najib and speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia to apologise to all Malaysians for the 13th Parliament’s failure to do anything to clear or purge Malaysia of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.

The 13th Parliament not only did not do anything to clear or purge Malaysia of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy, it ignored and subverted the fundamental
doctrine of the separation of powers and allowed Parliament to be a rubber stamp of the executive. Not only to suppress questions and debates on the 1MDB scandal, it became a partner in the political crime of
enacting the Anti-Fake News legislation to try to save Najib from the full consequences of the 1MDB scandal.

Do we have great national institutions in the Elections Commission, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the police, the MACC?

Every Malaysian knows that these institutions have fallen on bad times, as their independence, credibility and authority have been greatly undermined by their chiefs not living up to their high standards of impartiality, responsibility, professionalism and patriotism.

Last week, there was a long article in a Swiss magazine, Republik – which is available online – on the outcome of the examination of more than one thousand pages of bank statements and court documents, and
extensive interviews with more than a half-dozen people involved in Europe and Asia, about corruption and money-laundering from logging in Sabah.

But such corruption exposes virtually become irrelevant when they are overshadowed by the “mother of all corruption scandals”, the 1MDB scandal, which operates in the range of tens of billions of ringgit but not a person had been prosecuted or penalised in Malaysia despite worldwide 1MDB investigations and actions.

Only a change of the government in Putrajaya can make these national institutions great again, for them to be totally reformed and be run by efficient, competent and God-fearing Malaysians.

Do we have a great judiciary?

The “turtle egg” case causing dismay to Sabah lawyers is the latest example why something is very wrong with the judiciary after half a century of nation-building.

Sabah lawyers are rightly dismayed that the Court of Appeal could come out with a decision that the case be heard in Kuala Lumpur and not in Sabah, when the “turtle eggs” are in Sabah, the newspaper involved is a Sabah daily although the “VVIP” involved in the case is an Umno minister from Kuala Lumpur.

The BN manifesto launched in Kuala Lumpur last night pledged to implement the Malaysia Agreement 1963 proposals based on consensus achieved in BN.

This is a real cop-out. What has consensus got to do with implementing the Malaysia Agreement 1963?

If Pakatan Harapan wins the GE14 and forms the new government, we will implement the Malaysia Agreement 1963 without hesitation or compromise as the question of a consensus does not arise.

I am glad to see my old friend Simon Sipaun with us. I will propose that he head a commission to implement Malaysia Agreement 1963, and I will be happy to sit as a member of the commission.

We face great challenges in the GE14 - Malaysia has to be saved, but Malaysia cannot be saved without Sabah being saved.

Sabah also needs to be saved, for it is completely unacceptable that after more than half a century of nationhood, the people of Sabah still do not have basic infrastructures of clean water, electricity, health, education and transportation.

But Sabah can only be saved if Malaysia is saved.

This is why in the GE14, the following call and objective is most important:

Save Malaysia to save Sabah; save Sabah to save Malaysia!

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LIM KIT SIANG is DAP parliamentary leader and Gelang Patah MP. - Mkini