This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 13, 2019 - May 19, 2019

ONE year into the Pakatan Harapan (PH) administration, much is being said about what the government has got right or wrong, and what it did or didn’t do.

Hence, I will skip the ratings and report card bit and focus instead on the press conference by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the eve of the first anniversary of the historic 14th general election, when the PH coalition that he leads was swept into power.

Among the key takeaways from the event are two remarks by the prime minister: “We have to make sure everybody is more or less satisfied” and “My job is to prepare the country as much as possible so that it can be taken over by my successor”.

With the first remark, Mahathir — according to my colleague Tan Choe Choe, who covered the press conference — was responding to calls by various groups “for a new narrative to unite the people”.

It is a reply to the accusation by the Umno-Pas combo that the PH government is one “without a Malay-Muslim soul”. More of this in the article below.

Mahathir’s remark also shows that his government wants to make sure that all segments of society are somewhat satisfied with his policies in every aspect — race relations, the economy, health, security, the works.

In other words, he wants to make sure that the people feel the benefits of PH’s policies. Only then would they be more or less satisfied.

But one thing is for sure. Mahathir is not about to go the so-called populist way of giving handouts. He has called that buying support and even bribery. Mahathir has said the previous government used to give money to all kinds of groups and even artificially propped up household incomes.

Mahathir is propagating ideas that he used to promote when he was prime minister the first time around. He is all for hard work, new ways of making money, using technology to do business, new methods of farming and so on.

That has always been Mahathir. And like always, he has ideas on how to do it, but this time, he admits it is going to take time not only to make it work but also to make people accept the new ideas.

The cost of living is one big issue that the PH government is accused of not being able to tackle. Mahathir’s response is that his government is focused on increasing purchasing power as the ringgit is undervalued.

He says there are many ways to approach these problems — not just giving cash handouts to the people.

Notice the emphasis on “no cash handouts”. Will the people, in particular those who have been getting handouts from the Barisan Nasional administration, be more or less satisfied? Said another way, will they be happy without handouts?

And will that cost PH dearly in terms of public support in the next general election?

There is a consolation of sorts. An online survey conducted by The Malaysian Insight has found that despite grouses after one year of PH rule, most Malaysians would still give it another term. Taking that into account, PH needs to build on that assurance.

Mahathir obviously wants everybody to bite the bullet and get on with it for the betterment of the nation. The challenge is to change the mindset of the people who are used to handouts. And the bigger challenge is to ease their financial burden to have a decent living without handouts.

To this end, Mahathir has unveiled the Shared Prosperity 2030 policy. As the name suggests, it is a needs-based policy aimed at improving the people’s buying power and eliminating the income and wealth gap between classes, races and regions, and extreme disparity in the supply chain.

In a nutshell, the prime minister is saying that economic success boils down to money in the people’s pockets.

When PH came into power last year, I wrote, quoting political analysts and economists, that the new government was walking into a house that was badly damaged. And once inside, they realised that it was in a worse condition than what they had expected.

So, they were left with no choice but to start from scratch — to rebuild, or rather, construct a brand new house. To many, that house is the new Malaysia.

That brings us to Mahathir’s second remark. This is about preparing the country as much as possible “so that it can be taken over by my successor”.

That successor is Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, as in the words of Mahathir at the press conference, “that is something that is quite definite”.

The succession issue to me is secondary. The primary bit is the part when Mahathir says his job is to prepare the country as much as possible.

I must agree with the analysts who stress that in building a new house, the foundations have to be solid. The foundations of Malaysia Baru are about rights.

It is good to note that to date — that is, within its first year in government — PH has carried out about 40% of the 464 initiatives promised.

Next comes the task of putting in the building blocks. Fighting corruption is one such block. And good progress has been made thus far on that front, as well as in a freer media.

The other blocks would be getting the economy back on track, recognition of civil liberties and human rights, and promoting harmonious race and religious relations. To do this, the government has to put in place a raft of reforms.

It is a work in progress. We await the building of a strong and beautiful house — a Malaysia we love and can truly be proud of.

Mohsin Abdullah is a contributing editor at The Edge. He has covered politics for over four decades.

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