The Siren Song sung after the historic May 9, 2018 decision in the 14th General Election is becoming louder and more brazen because of desperation.

Patriotic Malaysians must reject this Siren Song for it can only end up in Malaysia becoming a failed, rogue and kleptocratic state.

The whole purpose of this Siren Song is not to compete with Pakatan Harapan government to make Malaysia a top world-class nation of unity, justice, freedom, excellence and integrity and to show the world that Malaysia is a success story from the Alliance of Civilisations and not a basket-case of a failure from the Clash of Civilisations, but to destroy the Pakatan Harapan Government, even if the price is to usher in an era of division and instability and to destroy the Malaysian nation altogether.

Immediately after the 14th General Election, these conspirators had hoped that Pakatan Harapan Government would disintegrate and implode from internal contradictions because it was an untested coalition of four political parties – DAP, PKR, Bersatu and Amanah.

When this did not take place, the decision was taken to launch an untrammelled campaign of lies, fake news and hate speech to destabilise the country and incite inter-racial and inter-religious polarisation and conflict, and this is why Malaysia has suddenly become a major test-case in the world as to whether a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation like Malaysia can survive the existential threat posed by fake news and hate speech.

The Doomsday Clock 2019 is positioned at two minutes to midnight –closest it’s been to midnight since 1953 during the Cold War – because fake news has been recognised as a third factor after nuclear risk and climate change which poste an existential threat to humanity.

The untrammelled spread of lies, fake news and hate speech have achieved it first result – every ethnic community feels that its position, rights and future are facing an existential threat.

One culmination of this campaign of untrammelled spread of lies, fake news and hate speech is the PAS-UMNO Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah spreading the concomitant belief that the future can only be assured with the unity of the Malays, reckless whether it will drive other communities to push for “Chinese Unity”. “Indian Unity”, “Kadazan Unity”, “Dayak Unity” or “Orang Asli Unity” gatherings.

Some thirty years ago in his speech “The Way Forward” in February 1990 where Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad first announced Vision 2020 of Malaysia becoming a fully developed nation in the year 2020, Mahathir referred to 19 countries that were generally regarded as “developed countries”.

We have not only failed to become a “fully developed nation” in 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ranked Malaysia at No. 63 in its list of countries by GDP per capita 2018.

In the past three decades, not only have Malaysia been overtaken by many countries, many ASEAN countries are closing the economic gap between them and Malaysia.

In 1990, Malaysia had a per capita GDP of US$2,550, as compared to US$349 for China, US$1,571 for Thailand, US$806 for Philippines, US$771 for Indonesia, US$100 for Cambodia, US$98 for Vietnam and US$426 for Laos.

In 2018, Malaysia had a per capita GDP of US$10,942, as compared to US$9,608 for China, US$7.187 for Thailand, US$3,104 for Philippines, US$3,871 for Indonesia, US$1,509 for Cambodia, US$2,551 for Vietnam and US$2,720 for Laos.

Forty years ago, when Malaysian Chinese visited China, it was a from a rich country to a poor and backward nation. Today, the reverse is taking place – as a visit from Malaysia to China now is to a more developed, advanced and more prosperous nation.

In 40 years of its economic reforms, the World Bank reported that China has brought 850 million people out of poverty while its per GDP had increased 24 times.

Malaysia’s per capita GDP increased by some eight times in the past four decades, while the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Professor Philip Alston, said recently that Malaysia had undercounted the number of poor, that the reported 0.4 per cent of households or approximately 27,000 households below the poverty line income (PLI) is a gross underestimation.

Last week, there were reports that Malaysia is even losing out to Vietnam.

This, and the infamy of Malaysia being regarded for close to a decade as a global kleptocracy, should be the issues Malaysians should be focussing on when we talk about Malaysia’s loss of dignity and honour in the international community of nations.

Instead, there is a systematic and orchestrated attempt to destabilise the country by the untrammelled spread of lies, false news and hate speech to incite inter-racial and inter-religious polarisastion and to cause the disintegration and collapse of the Pakatan Harapan Government.

The conspirators see the transition of power from the seventh Prime Minister to the eighth Prime Minister as the last opportunity for them to engineer a collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government or they would have to settle for the Pakatan Harapan government in Putrajaya serving its full term until the 15th General Election by 2023.

Hence the desperation of the conspirators and the fever pitch of the Siren Song – the hatching of plot after plot to destabilise the Pakatan Harapan government, the perennial rumours about “no confidence motion” on Mahathir except in this budget Parliament because the public had been foreewarned, the combination and permutation of a new government based on the game of political numbers to secure a majority of MPs in Parliament – including the latest plot of a new Federal Government in Putrajaya without the participation of DAP and Parti Amanah.

But such plots and conspiracies are not for Malaysia to achieve its aspiration to become a top world-class nation, but to fulfil the dreams of kleptocrats (which are the nightmares of ordinary Malaysians) either to avoid deserved convictions and sentences for their kleptocracy or to avert being hauled to court for their corruption and abuses of power.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Parliament on Wednesday, 16th October 2019)