KUCHING: With the dawn of 2020, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government should accord top priority to three tasks, said Sarawak PH chairman Chong Chieng Jen.
One is the fulfilment of the outstanding promises made in PH’s 2018 elections manifesto.
The second task is to resolve the racial polarisation issue while the third task is to focus on re-building the Malaysian economy.
Chong said 2019 had been a challenging year for the PH government with the implementation of many reforms.
The reforms included the systematic and increased in allocations for Chinese schools; full refund of RM37 billion in GST and income tax which was wrongfully withheld by the previous government and the implementation of more gender equal policies by appointing women to hold important positions in the government.
Others included stablising the price of goods by maintaining the inflation rate at below one per cent compared to previously when the inflation rates hovered around two to three per cent and stabilising the petrol RON95 and diesel prices at the respective ceiling prices of RM2.08/litre and RM2.18/litre for the past one year.
Despite the achievements, Chong said racial discord and polarisation seemed to have taken central stage in the nation.
He said it would not be easy to resolve the racial polarisation issue as the problem was the result of 56-year indoctrination and mutual mistrust.
“In all societies, there are bound to be the small minority extremists whose voices are the loudest. They have the agenda to drive a wedge amongst the races to serve their personal and political gains.
“However, I do believe that the great majority of Malaysians want to see a Malaysia with multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-racial harmony.”
Chong added to achieve that, the government would need the co-operation of all parties, cabinet ministers, elected representatives from both divide of the parliament, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), learning institutions, all Malaysians and the media.
On re-building the Malaysian economy, he said the internal and external challenges were the lack of confidence amongst the business sector caused by political uncertainty within PH and the fluid and uncertain international trade caused by the trade war between US and China.
Despite all these, Chong said statistically, Malaysia had done reasonably well compared to other countries in 2019.
“As we moved into 2020, PH will become more stabilised and there are glimpses of an amiable resolution of the trade war. With that, it is hoped that the economy will pick up in 2020,” he added.
