By Petronella Langita Felix
KUCHING: An academician with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) has suggested that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob implement the reforms proposed by his predecessor Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Prior to his resignation on Aug 16, Muhyiddin proposed seven reforms in his effort to gain bipartisan support from MPs, namely implementation of Undi18; limit premiership tenure to two terms; ban party-hopping; spending additional RM45 billion to fight the pandemic, and to hold 15th General Election no later than July 2022.
He also proposed to give opposition leaders Cabinet-level privileges by giving the same annual allocations to all MPs regardless of political party, and equally splitting the chairmanship of parliamentary committees between the government and opposition MPs.
Associate Professor Dr Neilson Ilan Mersat, who is attached to the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, said it would be commendable of the new government to continue the programmes introduced by the previous government.
“To be fair, his predecessor in the past administration had done his best to mitigate and handle the Covid-19 crisis by introducing a myriad of programmes.
“However, in some cases, the programmes did not eventuate because of intense politicking between politicians from the two political divide that more often than not put the interest of the people or the nation at the backburner instead of at the centre stage.”
Prof Ilan added that this would be welcomed by all Malaysians who are hoping the new administration would move forward effectively without much politicking, manipulating, and outmanoeuvring.
“If power struggle and internal bickering perpetuate then all the good programmes will be derailed; at the end of the day, all of us will suffer.”
