Time for young Malaysians to lead

 

MP SPEAKS | Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin has survived the confidence test with the passage of Budget 2021, a most ordinary budget in extraordinary times created by the “one-in-a-century” Covid-19 pandemic. But he has not demonstrated that he has won the confidence of MPs, rakyat and the world.

This is illustrated by the Fitch Ratings downgrade on Malaysia’s sovereign credit rating, the country’s overtaking of China in total cumulative Covid-19 cases today and the joint press conference by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah on Monday.

This is one of the abnormal situations where Muhyiddin had survived the confidence test but has not regained public confidence in his government.

It will be a great error of judgment if Muhyiddin regarded the 111-108 passage of Budget 2021 by the Dewan Rakyat yesterday – and I do not expect any problem in the budget passing the Dewan Negara before Christmas – as a resounding vote of confidence which would remove the “backdoor “ appellation of his cabinet and government.

The Muhyiddin government is backdoor and illegitimate, as otherwise there would have been no joint media conference by Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh on the eve of the budget's third reading vote. The possibility that the Muhyiddin government might fall if the budget could not pass in the Dewan Rakyat existed.

The joint Mahathir-Tengku Razaleigh press conference was not really meant for the public but for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong in case the situation arises where a new government has to be formed.

How can there be public confidence in the Muhyiddin cabinet when today Malaysia will overtake China in the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases? Especially since China, with a 1.4 billion population, has 40 times the number of people than in Malaysia. 

Malaysia is now ranked number 80 among countries in the world with the most number of Covid-19 cases with 86,618, while China is ranked 79 with 86,758 cases – a difference of 140 cases.

With Malaysia’s new daily Covid-19 infections in four-digit figures, reaching 1,937 cases on Dec 12 and 2,234 on Dec 10, it is set to overtake China in the cumulative total of cases today.

Is this grim milestone a cause for confidence in the Muhyiddin cabinet or the reverse? This is indeed food for thought for the rakyat.

Be that as it may, the opposition must focus on the challenges of the next general election, and not on toppling Muhyiddin's administration.

This is also the time to have more young Malaysians in leadership positions as they have the most at stake with their future.

I suggested last month that the federal and Sabah state governments should set up a task force headed by 18-year-old Veveonah Mosibin to conduct a survey in Sabah. This is to ensure that having to spend 24 hours on a treetop or causing the collapse of a suspension bridge in the Sabah interior for youths to get better Internet access for education would be a thing of the past.

Veveonah Mosibin

This must have come as a shock to many who asked how can a national task force be entrusted to a young student. We are in a new era, and we must be prepared for new ways to address the nation’s problems.

Last week, one of the nation’s leading news was on Jocelyn Yow, a 25-year-old of Malaysian Chinese-Vietnamese descent from Kedah becoming US mayor of Eastvale, a town of 55,000 located an hour east of Los Angeles, California.

Malaysia will make world news if Veveonah is appointed a chairperson of a federal-Sabah government task force to resolve the kinks in Internet access in all the remote kampungs in the Sabah interior to facilitate online education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It will be a triple testimony that Malaysia values the contribution of youths, women and minorities to resolve national problems, particularly those faced by the young generation of students over online education.

But there was only stony silence from the Federal and Sabah state governments on the matter. 

Questions may be asked whether Veveonah is qualified to chair such a task force. My answer is why not. From her pluck, grit and determination to spend 24 hours on a treetop for Internet access to sit for an exam, I have full confidence in her qualification to head such a task force to combat digital poverty in Sabah’s interior. It will be to resolve a problem she herself had to overcome.

If other youths can hold leadership positions worldwide, I see no reason why Veveonah cannot do it. 

For example, 34-year-old Sanna Marin as Finland's premier; Jacinda Ardern the New Zealand prime minister at 37; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - the youngest woman elected to the US Congress at 29; Sebastian Kurz the chancellor of Austria at 31; Luigi DiMaio the Italian deputy prime minister at 31; Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman as youth and sports minister at 25, and now Yow as a US mayor.  

Jocelyn Yow

It is time that millennials (born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s to early 2000s) be empowered with more trust, responsibility and power as 54 percent of Malaysia’s population are below 30 and some 70 percent of the population are below 40. 

Let this be the era of millennials. 

The Muhyiddin cabinet has no voice for the millennials in Malaysia, for there is no minister who is below 40.

There are four ministers in the Muhyiddin cabinet who are below 50, respectively 43, 44, 46 and 47 years old – a poor comparison with the Pakatan Harapan cabinet, which started with a 25-year-old minister, followed by a 35-year-old minister and five more who were below 50.

In fact, Harapan with a 93-year-old prime minister had a cabinet with a younger average age of 55.7 years as compared to the bloated 32-member Muhyiddin cabinet with an average of 57.5 years. 

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LIM KIT SIANG is the DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.