2021 New Year Message by DAP Secretary-General and MP For Bagan, Lim Guan Eng in Kuala Lumpur On 31 December 2020:

2020 is the year of the global pandemic COVID-19, triggering a quintuple health, political, economic, education and confidence crisis in the country. Unfortunately this quintuple crisis has not been addressed by the new unelected Perikatan Nasional (PN) government and should be the New Year‘s resolution for any government.

A nation-wide lockdown imposed after daily COVID-19 infections increased by hundreds early this year, was supposed to break COVID-19 in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the government mishandled the situation with 110,485 infections by 30th December, more than China.

Malaysia’s daily COVID-19 infections is now the second highest in ASEAN countries after Indonesia, with us recording nearly two thousand cases daily. There is real concern that our health facilities may not be able to cope with the escalating number of infections.

Worse, the PN government refuses to cough up RM2.1 billion to make early purchases of the COVID-19 vaccines, resulting in us receiving them only in 2 to 3 months, as compared to our neighbour Singapore taking delivery now. Such a stingy and miserly refusal to make available RM2.1 billon is a bigger blunder and more incompetent than Malaysia’s downgrade in sovereign credit ratings by Fitch recently.

The education crisis has adverse long-term consequences for our future generation. With students only attending classes for 4 months this year, there is an urgent need to spend an additional RM4 billion to buy everyone a laptop and upgrade internet connectivity to allow for on-line learning. We cannot afford our young not to learn anymore.

The PN government’s failure to address political instability caused by its slim 2 seat Parliamentary majority, health, economic and education crisis has led to a crisis of confidence. Vietnam has even surpassed Malaysia economically with a larger GDP for the first time.

To distract attention from their failure to address the quintuple crisis, members of this unelected government continue to make political statements or take actions that divide the rakyat or hurt the sentiments of many Malaysians, especially women and minorities.

Malaysians must unite against these racists and religious extremists. We unite as one nation, this land belongs to all citizens.

Malaysians must never give up our quest to allow everyone to enjoy equal opportunities and our children to realise their fullest potential. We must give hope to Malaysians, especially women and minorities, that they will be recognised for their accomplishments here and not only celebrated as Malaysians when they succeed in foreign countries.

Lim Guan Eng
DAP Secretary-General
MP for Bagan