Johor will make history next Saturday which will be a test to decide whether the Anwar unity government forges ahead with reforms to make Malaysia a great world-class nation or Malaysia backtrack to become a divided, failed, and corrupt state.

PAS President, Hadi Awang said a great win for the Perikatan Nasional and PAS in the two by-elections in Pulai and Simpang Jeram would lead to the toppling of Anwar Ibrahim as the 10th Prime Minister and change of government.

I am quite skeptical of this as the loss of Pulai parliamentary seat will only mean the loss of the two-thirds parliamentary majority of the Anwar unity government, but this is no small matter, as it will decide on the quality and speed of policy changes and institutional reforms for the next four years.

There are many unhappy with the quality and speed of policy changes and institutional reforms but real time for judgement is not now but in four years’ time in the 16th General Election in 2027.

It is then that Malaysians should pass a judgement of the reform efforts of the Anwar Unity Government, which has also to spend time to fob off Sheraton Move 2 efforts to topple the Anwar Unity Government.

The two by-elections have also a special meaning for Johor — to decide whether Johor will clearly join the “high-income” states like Penang, Sarawak, and Selangor, which have GDP per capita above the Malaysian average, or join Kelantan to be a poor low-income state, with Kelantan slipping from over half the Malaysian GDP per capita in the early years of Merdeka in 1957 to only less than one-third of the Malaysian GDP per capita after over three decades of PAS State Government.

(Media Statement by DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang in Penang on Saturday, 2nd September 2023)