What Will Muhyiddin Do If “Unity” Budget 2021 Is Sabotaged?

 

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad wants to sabotage Budget 2021. He wants to sabotage Budget 2021 not because it is no good. In fact, the budget is good and has taken into consideration the crash-landing ahead of us. Mahathir wants to sabotage Budget 2021 because he wants to use this as a backdoor no-confidence motion against Muhyiddin. Basically, it’s personal, and Mahathir is prepared to hurt 32 million Malaysians for his personal agenda.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

It does not matter that Budget 2021 is now called Unity Budget 2021. It does not matter that the 2021 Budget is not just a government budget any longer but a joint budget between the government and the opposition.

The opposition has, in fact, made certain proposals on what should be included in the budget. And the Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, has agreed to look into these proposals and consider them.

The two main priorities at the moment — not just for Malaysia, but for all countries all over the world — is to combat the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and try to save as many lives as possible and to build back the economy that has been ravaged by the pandemic.

The Spanish H1N1 influenza pandemic of 100 years ago infected 500 million people and killed about 50 million people over more than a year. If not careful, Covid-19 may turn out to be as bad or worse. At this stage, no one knows yet how it is going to end.

The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is not over and the worst is yet to come

But what is worse than the infection rate and deaths, which may end by 2021, is the toll on the economy and on people’s lives. Poverty is going to increase, as will bankruptcies. All over the world businesses are collapsing and unemployment is increasing. Just another few months of this is enough to do unrepairable damage.

Even if the Covid-19 pandemic can go away by mid-2021, or later in the year, the economy is not going to bounce back until at least three to five years after that. Previous recessions have shown that it takes that long to recover after just a year of beating.

Hence Budget 2021 — or “Unity Budget 2021”, as what the media is now calling it — needs to be a crash-landing budget. We are going to crash, no doubt about that, and 32 million Malaysians are going to suffer, and some are even going to die. So, what is the government going to do to make sure as many Malaysians as possible survive this crash-landing?

When Pakatan Harapan came into power 30 months ago, they kept talking about how the previous government was spending too much money and the focus of the new government was going to be to cut spending. They removed taxes such as the GST and did a fire-sale on government assets.

Today, Pakatan Harapan is going in the opposite direction and wants the government to spend more money

More importantly, they plundered the national oil company, Petronas, so that they could remove taxes and at the same time still pay the bills. It was basically a big show to try to impress the people that they are better at running the country without revealing they are selling the family silver to stay afloat.

Now Pakatan Harapan wants the government to go the opposite direction. They want the government to give out more aid and stimulus packages. But where will the money come from? The people are already suffering so the government cannot bring back the GST, which would help since that will bring in probably RM40 billion or so. What else is there to sell? Companies such as MAS are in such bad shape you cannot even give it away free. Take more money from Petronas? Sell forward all our oil and gas until the year 2050?

Yes, Pakatan Harapan wanted to please the voters by removing all taxes and by giving everything free. Pakatan Harapan’s policy was no money in but plenty of money out. And that means you need to dig into your savings and sell all your assets.

Pakatan Harapan wants to sabotage Budget 2021 as a backdoor no-confidence motion against Muhyiddin

Of course, in 2018, Pakatan Harapan did not know that Covid-19 was coming. Who would ever suspect that a crash was coming? But now the crash is already here, and we are not geared for a crash. That, in essence, is the predicament that Pakatan Harapan left us.

Hence Budget 2021 or Unity Budget 2021 is crucial. It means life and death for the country and for Malaysians. You kill Budget 2021 and you kill Malaysia and 32 million Malaysians.

But Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad wants to sabotage Budget 2021. He wants to sabotage Budget 2021 not because it is no good. In fact, the budget is good and has taken into consideration the crash-landing ahead of us. Mahathir wants to sabotage Budget 2021 because he wants to use this as a backdoor no-confidence motion against Muhyiddin. Basically, it’s personal, and Mahathir is prepared to hurt 32 million Malaysians for his personal agenda.

But what if Pakatan Harapan does sabotage or kill Budget 2021? What is Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin going to do? Good question, is it not? Why not kill Budget 2021 so that we can find out what Muhyiddin does? Of course, 32 million Malaysians will suffer — but is that not worth it just to see what Muhyiddin is going to do?