PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang thinks Malaysians are fools to believe the latest PAS fairy tale that its confidence motion in Parliament next month is to save the nation when in fact it is to torpedo the Pakatan Harapan government and advance Hadi’s choice for Malaysians choose to be goat-herders or pig-herders.

It is also proof that the present PAS leadership is never committed to the principles of parliamentary democracy and will be the first to dispense with democratic principles and practices if given access to power, just as the present PAS leadership has exhibited its disloyal attitude to the Constitution and the Rukunegara after the 14th General Election, supporting corruption and kleptocracy as well as approving lies and falsehoods, sanitised as being “shariah-compliant”.

Hadi claims that PAS MPs are not “cowards” and even concocts the lie that DAP MPs are not united on the issue.

This is the latest example of “shariah-compliant” lie sanctioned by the present PAS leadership.

What is the political future of Malaysians for the present PAS leadership – a kleptocratic Malaysia, teeming with “shariah-compliant” sin and lies, for the people to choose to be goat-herders or pig-herders?

It is shocking that in the sixth decade of our Malaysian nationhood, Malaysian are being asked to choose to be goat-herders or pig-herders.

The advocates of this version of politics are gambling with the future of a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation rejecting the dream for decades of Malaysian Prime Ministers, including Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, and great Malaysian patriots regardless of race or religion, for the nation to be a top world-class nation.

These advocates of a regressive and extremist Malaysia do not mind if Malaysia becomes a mediocre or even a failed kleptocratic state or become the Venezuela of South East Asia, so long as the Pakatan Harapan Federal government coalition is torpedoed and toppled.

This is not the future for Malaysians. Pakatan Harapan does not want Malaysians to be forced to choose between becoming goat-herders or pig-herders, but to acquire excellence and mastery over science and technology in the information age and the world of artificial intelligence (AR) so that Malaysia can become a top world-class nation.

Venezuela is in the thick of a terrible political, socio-economic and humanitarian crisis. Once one of the 20 richest countries in the world and the richest in Latin America with free education and free medical services for her citizens, it is now poor, backward, broken and bankrupt state, with some 14 per cent of Venezuelans (4.5 million) having left the country in despair.

The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has affected the life of the average Venezuelan on all levels. By 2017, hunger had escalated to the point where almost seventy-five percent of the population had lost an average of over 8 kg (over 19 lbs) in weight, and more than half did not have enough income to meet their basic food needs.

In the latest international media report on Venezuela, the seven-year crushing depression in the Latin American country caused by massive corruption, incompetence and mismanagement has even led to the reversal of the infant mortality rates which had been falling since the 1940s.

Malaysia is the confluence of four great civilisations in the world – Malay/Islamic, Chinese, Indian and Western.

We can play an active role to leverage on the values and qualities of these four great civilisations to build a great Malaysian nation and a better world – even to recast the 2005 United Nations Initiative of Alliance for Civilisations into a genuinely universal collaboration of all the great civilisations of the world.

Instead of leveraging on the best qualities of our diverse population to become a top world-class nation in unity in diversity, anti-corruption, economic progress and democratic freedoms, Malaysians can succumb to the dishonest, destructive and disloyal politics of PAS and the Opposition to choose between becoming goat-herders or pig-herders, and become a failed state and the Venezuela of South East Asia.

The reaffirmation by Mahathir in Langkawi yesterday of his commitment to honour the plan to hand over the prime minister’s post to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim after the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in November should have put paid to all the scheming, conspiracies and plots by PAS and other Opposition characters to torpedo the Pakatan Harapan government, but this may not be the case.

In fact, the political situation should have stabilised after Anwar met Mahathir on Thursday and said that the Pakatan Harapan agreement of January 7, 2018 on the on the appointment of Mahathir as the seventh Prime Minister and the transition of power from Mahathir as the seventh Prime Minister to Anwar as the eighth Prime Minister would be finalised at the Pakatan Harapan presidential council on Feb. 21, but the prophets of doom and naysayers believed otherwise, claiming that a lot of things could happen before the PH presidential council meeting on Feb. 21.

Will PAS leaders and Opposition opportunists continue to stir the pot, hoping to perpetuate the perception that the Pakatan Harapan federal government is on its last legs?

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Saturday, 15th February 2020)