The reason for Perikatan Nasional’s “Kerajaan Gagal” image
This is the government’s fault, or rather the then Barisan Nasional government for 61 years. They have spoilt Malaysians and made them manja terlajak. As Dr Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim said, “Orang Melayu sudah jadi bangsa subsidi.” Malaysians no longer want to struggle; they want to be spoon-fed or makan suap. That is the reason why the government is seen as “Kerajaan Gagal”; because the government tak bagi rakyat makan suap.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The Perikatan Nasional government is seen as a “Kerajaan Gagal”, and by extension so is Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. And there is a reason for this.
The reality is the Malaysian government is not any worse than the other South-East Asian or ASEAN governments. In fact, in many respects, Malaysia is better. One can argue that Singapore is better than Malaysia by far. But that may be true in some areas only, not in every area. It all depends in what aspects you are comparing Malaysia to Singapore.
For example, racism-wise, Singapore is worse. They will scold a Chinese woman if she marries an Indian man. And Thailand is more brutal if you insult its monarch, whereas in Malaysia you can get away with murder. Thailand is also more brutal if you are perceived as insulting Buddha or Buddhism, whereas in Malaysia you can insult Prophet Muhammad and Islam without much retaliation.
Nevertheless, the “Kerajaan Gagal” that Malaysians are talking about refers more to the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccination program, plus the economic fallout due to the lockdown.
If you really assess Malaysia’s performance, or what they nowadays call KPI, Malaysia is still better than many other countries, advanced countries included. It must be noted that no country has ever faced a Covid-19 pandemic before this, and everyone was doing things on a trial-and-error basis. For some countries, the learning curve was faster than other countries because each country is unique and has its own peculiar situation.
This is what SPRINGER said in March 2021:
In summary, Malaysia had successfully flattened the trajectory curve during an uncertain time and performed well in mitigating and managing the COVID-19 crisis that can be benchmarked to other countries. At the time of writing, it is still unclear whether and to what extent, Malaysia will be able to retain its early performance in managing COVID-19 crisis. Despite some limitations, the network efficiency measurement demonstrated in this study reflects the preparedness and response level of managing the pandemic. (READ MORE HERE).
All countries started of fumbling, mainly because the Covid-19 pandemic was a new experience. Even the UK made many blunders. The issue is whether we quickly learned from those mistakes and improved the way we did things. In Malaysia’s case, the answer is yes. Malaysia’s learning curve was faster than many other countries.
So why are Malaysians so unhappy and act as if the world is coming to an end? Well, that is because Malaysians manja sangat. The government has been pandering to their every whim and fancy and Malaysians have been brought up to believe that the government owes them a living.
This is what separates Malaysians from people of other South-East Asian or ASEAN countries. Malaysians have been made to believe that when your berak, you just shout “done” and your wakil rakyat will rush into the toilet to help wash and wipe your bontot. You do not need to do anything; everything is done for you.
The argument many people use is: they pay taxes, so the government must do everything for them. Everyone in the world pays taxes. In fact, in many countries, they pay even higher taxes than Malaysians. But only Malaysians expect RM100 in return for the RM1 tax that they pay. Isn’t the favourite Malaysian phrase “cheap and good”?
This is the government’s fault, or rather the then Barisan Nasional government for 61 years. They have spoilt Malaysians and made them manja terlajak. As Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim said, “Orang Melayu sudah jadi bangsa subsidi.” Malaysians no longer want to struggle; they want to be spoon-fed or makan suap. That is the reason why the government is seen as “Kerajaan Gagal”; because the government tak bagi rakyat makan suap.
