KOTA KINABALU: Upko president Wilfred Madius Tangau has urged Umno MPs who have retracted support for Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, and others in Barisan Nasional thinking of doing the same, to join Pakatan Harapan.
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He urged Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub (Machang), Nazri Aziz (Padang Rengas), Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (Gua Musang) and “other old friends in BN who are abandoning Muhyiddin, not because they have ongoing court cases”, to join PH Plus to discuss alternative policies for “post-Muhyiddin and post-Perikatan Nasional Malaysia”.
“Whether we would sit next to each other in the future, as parliamentarians, we have a duty to offer workable and broad-based policies for millions of suffering Malaysians when the PM damages their livelihoods just to save his job,” Tangau, the Tuaran MP and former Sabah deputy chief minister, said.
It was one of two suggestions Tangau made in a statement today, with the other being for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to urgently form a shadow Cabinet.
He pleaded with the PKR president to form a shadow Cabinet within a week, and immediately work out the opposition’s alternative policies on the pandemic and economy.
“Please chair the PH Plus shadow Cabinet’s first meeting next Wednesday, on Zoom.
“It’s time we stopped our repeated attacks on the backdoor government.
“Instead, we must work hard on offering better policies and delivery so we can walk in from the front door with a strong, formidable and convincing majority after the 15th general election,” he said.
He also said “Muhyiddin’s emergency” was an irresponsible and desperate act.
“By claiming business as usual and shutting down Parliament and preventing elections, the PM is not fighting Covid-19.
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“He is assaulting democracy to save his own job. In doing so, he is harming millions of jobs after the market crashed in the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange yesterday and harming the livelihood of millions of households. This is likely to get worse as the emergency progresses in the coming eight months.”
He said Muhyiddin and his ministers who support the state of emergency were collectively destroying market confidence, and chasing away investments, both foreign and domestic, by creating a double crisis in economy and politics.
“More than ever before, the opposition must rise to the occasion to be an alternative to Muhyiddin’s reckless politics.
“PH Plus must be ready to shoulder the responsibility to restore our economy when Muhyiddin’s adventurism and misgovernance cross the red line beyond what the Malaysian public and sober parliamentarians in the government can tolerate,” he said.
While he believed that day would come, he feared that PH Plus might not be ready to take over.
“I would like to say PH Plus is ready to save Malaysia but I would then be lying. The truth is PH Plus has wasted 10 months after the Sheraton Move.
“We did not have a shadow Cabinet despite having about 40 ex-ministers and ex-deputy ministers. We could not even produce a shadow Budget before Nov 6. I am ashamed.
“I do not want to point my finger at any of my parliamentary colleagues because I, too, am guilty of doing too little. I can only offer my apologies to all Malaysians who feel let down.
“Waking up on the first morning after Muhyiddin’s emergency, I feel the anxiety, anguish and anger of my fellow Malaysians who see no hope in our government and politics,” he said.- FMT