A foreign visitor to Malaysia would think that China President Xi Jinping is contesting in Malaysia’s 14th General Election on May 9, 2018.

Xi Jinping is an outstanding leader and great President of China, but is he contesting in the Malaysian general elections, where his photograph on giant billboards is put up all over the country, when even the image of Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir is summarily and unceremoniously torn out from Pakatan Harapan election billboards by Election Commission?

The MCA President, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, should explain why he is putting up giant billboards of Xi Jinping in Bentong and in constituencies contested by MCA, and not billboards of the Barisan Nasional President and Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Is this an admission that in his heart of hearts, the MCA President knows that Najib is the most unpopular Prime Minister in Malaysian history, responsible for the internationally infamous 1MDB money-laundering scandal which, overnight, turned Malaysia into a global kleptocracy and international outcast?

If so, why had there not been a single MCA Minister, Member of Parliament, State Assembly representative or leader who had dared to question Najib whether in Cabinet, Parliament or the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or other BN forums in the past five years on the 1MDB scandal?

Pakatan Harapan Members of Parliament persisted in our efforts to demand full accountability for the 1MDB scandal to cleanse and clear Malaysia’s international reputation, but for such patriotic efforts in Parliament, I was twice suspended from Parliament for six months each, and for the last six days of the 13th Parliament, the Parliament Speaker could not see me although I went into the Parliament Chambers every day and sat directly in front of the Speaker.

The failure of any MCA Minister, MP or leader to question the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal is the recent greatest betrayal of the Chinese in Malaysia as well as of all Malaysians, and demonstrates the impotence and irrelevance of MCA on serious questions about the future of Malaysia.

It is such political impotence and irrelevance which is the cause of the Malaysian Diaspora in the world, where Malaysians of all races, Chinese, Indians and Malays, are forced by the bad governance in Malaysia to emigrate overseas to seek greener pastures.

If Pakatan Harapan forms the new Malaysian government in Putrajaya in the 14GE on May 9, 2018, I will suggest that a top priority of the new Pakatan Harapan government the setting up a high-level commission to make recommendations to attract over a million of the best and brightest Malaysians in the Malaysian Diaspora all over the world to return to Malaysia to build home, family and country as well as to ensure that new generation of Malaysians do not have to emigrate overseas for their talents and capabilities to be fully recognized.

The recent 2018 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTIC) report found that Singapore ranks No. 2 in talent competitiveness, while Malaysia ranks No. 27.

It is a shame that with Malaysia’s talents, Malaysia could not rank in the top 25 countries to attract and retain talent to make Malaysia a top world-class nation and this why a top priority of Pakatan Harapan Malaysian Government is for Malaysia to be among the top 25 countries in GTIC, starting with the million-strong Malaysian Diaspora worldwide.

(Speech in Rasah on Monday, 30th April 2018 at 8.30 pm)