Malaysia has really fallen on very bad times with the country becoming a joke in international circles.

The Covid-19 pandemic has come as a disguised blessing in banning international travel for Malaysians cannot hold their heads high in foreign countries.

We have a Prime Minister who have put the country under a five-month emergency to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, but unlike countries which have not declared any emergency, new Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to soar.

On November 18, 2020, we ranked No. 85 among countries with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases. Yesterday, some seven months later, with 646,411 cases we are now ranked No. 39 among countries with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases. We are likely to overtake Austria today and be ranked No. 38.

For daily cases per million of population yesterday, we beat the world’s top 20 nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases except three countries – Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

So far, 3,684 people have died of Covid-19 in Malaysia – 3,133 deaths during the five months of the emergency since January 11, 2021 as compared to 551 deaths in the first 12 months of the Covid-19 pandemic before the emergency.

There were 84 Covid-19 deaths in Malaysia yesterday compared to 17 deaths in United Kingdom which had a peak daily increase of 1,823 Covid-19 deaths on January 20, 2021.

There is an intriguing shadow play as to who would helm the government as if the days of Muhyiddin Yassin as Prime Minister are numbered, with rumours of a Hishammuddin-Azmin combination and talks of Tengku Razaleigh as interim Prime Minister and a return of a NOC-rule, which is completely unsuitable and inappropriate in Malaysia of 2021!

We have a Home Minister who wants Malaysia to gain further infamy by being the first nation in the which would only allow its Parliament to meet if the nation achieves herd immunity against Covid-19, although nobody knows whether this herd immunity is achievable.

Furthermore, this Home Minister seems to be working at cross purpose from the Minister co-ordinating vaccines in wanting to launch manhunts against undocumented migrant workers, regardless of its consequences on the national immunisation programme.

We have a Transport Minister who is better described as a Minister for Gobbledygook, who held a news conference on the report on the collision between two Light Rail Transit (LRT) trains in Kuala Lumpur on May 24 and nobody understood what he said, which led columnist Mariam Mohtar to write an article entitled: “11 reasons why minister Wee should resign”.

The only thing in Wee’s gobbledygook news conference that the public could understand was when the Minister said it was not the investigating committee’s job to “apportion blame nor liability on any party” – which seemed to defeat the very purpose of the inquiry.

Former Transport Minister Anthony Loke has said that if he was the minister in charge, he would have definitely made the report public as soon as it was presented to the Cabinet. What is Wee hiding?

We have a Senior Defence Minister who gave a graphic account of closing the front door but lamenting that the backdoor was available.

We have a Special Functions Minister specifically in charge of National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) who have been especially excluded from the National Security Council on the Covid-19 disaster who questioned the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in particular on the national immunisation programme.

And we have the most bloated Cabinet in Malaysian history – faceless and nameless Ministers whom the Malaysian public would not be able to recognise when stumbling into them anywhere in Malaysia.

It is tragic and a national disgrace that those in power cannot see that the answer to the Covid-19 pandemic is to convene Parliament and the State Assemblies to restore public trust and confidence in the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by ending all Covid-19 SOP flip-flops, U-turns and double-standards and to launch a national mobilisation of a “whole-of-society” strategy and approach in the war against Covid-19 pandemic.

Until then, the times will continue to be very bad for Malaysians and the country will continue to be a laughing stock in international circles.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, June 12, 2021)