Does PN have an exit strategy for the MCO? - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

Putrajaya

Malaysiakini : "Well, the basic principle is openness, transparency and fully keeping the public informed." - South Korean foreign minister Kang, Kyung-wha on the strategy towards Covid-19 pandemic

COMMENT | With the extension of the movement control order, the big question is does Perikatan Nasional (PN) have an exit strategy? The South Korean foreign minister - whose quote from a BBC interview opens this piece – accurately describes the dilemma some Malaysians find themselves in when it comes to the government’s response to this pandemic.

The reality is that a government created out of deceit and treachery and held together by personal cooperation - as articulated by Sabah Umno chairperson Bung Moktar Radin - is unable to articulate a cohesive vision of tackling this pandemic and more importantly, a post-pandemic phase.

As the Singaporean foreign minister rightly pointed out, this pandemic “… is an acid test of every single country's quality of healthcare, standard of governance and social capital. If any one of this tripod is weak, it will be exposed and exposed quite unmercifully by this epidemic”, and what we have had are small feel-good moments of personality politics, malfeasance in terms of food aid, unequal application of the MCO (movement control order) laws but very little substantive policy on how to handle this pandemic.

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