Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 6): Former political enemies have come together now because the country needs to reset its current direction that is headed towards excessive indebtedness and divisive politics, said two top leaders of the opposition Pakatan Harapan coalition.

“At this moment, there should not be any problem with financing, but because there is abuse of the government’s funds, we seem to be very poor… and the government seems to think that the only way to overcome this is to raise taxes,” said Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia Chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at a talk organised by The Malaysian Insight (TMI) news site this morning.

“Of course, then it hits the people,” he said.

“People find it difficult to understand 1MDB. They cannot even figure out what is 1 billion ringgit. But they can understand GST, tax being levied on people who sleep in hotels, and now when you go to the airport, you have to pay RM1. There are taxes and taxes being added, which before there was no need for, at a time when we were not so prosperous.

“We think it’s a lot of abuses going on in the government, so much so that the government has to tax the people. This is what the people understand and feel very much against,” said Mahathir.  

The other speaker in the 45-minute session was DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang. The event entitled “Saving Malaysia: Friends and Foes” was moderated by TMI’s Jahabar Sadiq and broadcast on Facebook Live.

The two leaders gave their views on various issues affecting the country, including the troubled 1MDB state investment fund, the dominance of racial and religious issues, voter sentiment, the coalition’s chances in the coming 14th general election, leadership succession, the coalition's choice for prime minister and economic matters.

“There is a sense of disappointment and disillusionment, of hopelessness, in fact,” Lim said, referring to the sentiment among voters for national progress. “We have to prevent the fallout of this and make sure to reignite hope, confidence and expectation to be able to maintain or even improve on the voter turnout.”

“This task of saving the nation should be borne by Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or even party politics. It is the responsibility of all Malaysians. That’s why we believe we should try and reach out to the 3.5 million Umno members and 1 million PAS members,” Lim said.

“It is time to get back [to the Malaysian Dream], which we are celebrating after 60 years. We are supposed to be ahead of other countries, but we have lost out to South Korea, Taiwan. I still remember, 60 years ago, where was Taiwan? Very poor, very backward. South Korea was not even in our radar. But now, they are ahead of us. So it is time that we get it back together, so that we can continue to be a progressive, prosperous, united and model nation,” Lim said.

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