There have been too much negative vibes in the country in the past 15 months, which have seen the rearing of the ugly heads of distrust, suspicion, fear and hate, as a result of the Internet phenomenon enabling lies, falsehoods, fake news and hate speech to travel at the speed of light to pit race against race and religion against religion.

This is most anomalous for the past 15 months should be a season of hope and expectation of change for the better in Malaysia, with the historic decision of the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018 to democratically and peacefully change the Federal Government first time in six decades.

Malaysia has been described as one of the six countries where “some light shined through these gathering clouds in 2018” against the backdrop of “13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom”, but these hopes seems to have dimmed suddenly in a matter of 15 months, to the extent that there are claims that the Pakatan Harapan is similar to Barisan Nasional – with a former Malaysian Bar President penning an article entitled: “What we have now is BN 2.0”.

It is fallacious to equate Pakatan Harapan as BN 2.0, disregarding the ground work that has been done for further institutional and political reforms and to transform Malaysia into a top world-class nation of unity, freedom, justice, excellence and integrity, with a “tiger economy” and far-reaching educational reforms.

But the Pakatan Harapan government must heed the increasing impatience of the people that there should be greater progress in the reforms in various aspects of national life. Read the rest of this entry »