Why has the PAS President, Hadi Awang, emerged as a new champion of a failed emergency to combat the Covid-19 pandemic?
He appeared not to have minded that Malaysia had tumbled in international performance in handling the Covid-19 pandemic, to an extent that the Indonesian government had cited Malaysia in the same breath as India in its warning to Indonesians to stay home and to take precautions on Covid-19 in the forthcoming Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.
I find it most shocking the spectacle of a leader of a political party in government coalition who appears to relish the downgrading of Malaysia’s international status, lower than Indonesia, a country which Malaysia had always prided as superior in terms of public health competence, services and infrastructure development.
I find it not only completely unacceptable but incomprehensible why Hadi has come out to champion a failed emergency and even went so far as to label the critics of the government’s poor performance in handling the Covid-19 pandemic as “disruptors”.
This is reminiscent of his recent statement which likened those who oppose the emergency as “political extremists worse than religious extremists that had detonated bombs and killed their victims in smaller numbers as compared to the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic which had now spread across the world”.
Rational and reasonable Malaysians are utterly shocked by such outlandish thinking and logic.
Let me tell Hadi that he is completely wrong in equating the critics of Muhyiddin’s emergency rule as akin to bombers, assassins, killers and somehow having blood in their hands for being responsible for the 1,722 Covid-19 fatalities in Malaysia or the more than 3.3 million Covid-19 fatalities in the world.
The critics of the failed emergency to combat Covid-19 pandemic, regardless of race, religion or region, whether they are Ramadan bazaar operators, SME workers or ordinary Malaysians, are all Malaysian patriots who have nothing to do with the death of the 1,722 who have died of Covid-19 in Malaysia or the more than 3.3 million people who ha died in the world.
They are all humanists who want the ravages and destruction to life and livelihoods by the Covid-19 pandemic to end immediately.
Hadi has committed a great slander and a grave injustice to cast the critics of the emergency as Satan-like characters who thirst for death and destruction when it is the very opposite – they want efficient, competent and sensitive handling of the Covid-19 pandemic so that it could be ended as soon as possible for life to return to normality.
The defenders of the failed emergency can continue to do so, but do not spit fire and brimstone to falsely cast the critics of the emergency in a devilish light. This is in fact fake news. Will Hadi be prosecuted under the fake news emergency ordinance?
It is also not open to the defenders of the failed emergency to declare that the emergency has given them powers to deal with a worsening Covid-19 situation.
The emergency was declared on January 12 to bring the Covid-19 pandemic, which had on that day recorded a daily increase of 3,309 new Covid-19 cases, four deaths and a cumulative total of 141,533 cases, under control. Yesterday, there was a daily increase 3,978 new Covid-19 cases, 22 deaths and a cumulative total of 448,457 cases had been recorded.
Hadi cannot see that the emergency of Jan. 12 had failed when even the most illiterate and innumerate would know that the emergency declared on January 12 to combat the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has failed?
The emergency and suspension of Parliament and the State Assemblies declared on January 12, 2021 was completely unnecessary. What was important and necessary was to spearhead an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” national mobilisation against Covid-19 pandemic, which Parliament, if not suspended, would be most qualified to do.
I would urge Hadi to come to his senses and join the critics of the emergency to call for an immediate end of the failed emergency if January 12 and the convening of Parliament and the various State Assemblies to spearhead a national mobilisation against Covid-19 pandemic.
(Media Statement (2) by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday May 12, 2021)