LETTER | Govt between rock and hard place

LETTER | The Sungai Bakap by-election has shown that not only does the government appear to be incapable of providing quick results, but it also showed that the people are utterly shortsighted and incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff.

Generally, most think that the government can perform miracles to undo all the problems embedded in our economy.

I have tried my best to listen to both sides during the by-election campaigns.

The Perikatan Nasional side was basically narrating the problems besetting this country and its people - yes, the high cost of living, inflation, subsidy withdrawal, the falling value of ringgit, a purported cosy relationship with Israel’s businesses and interests, selling Malaysia to foreigners, Malays and Islam losing power and dominance, and the government was discriminative and selective in dishing out allocations.

While all these problems kept being played, there was none on the solution.

Do they really know the reasons behind the soaring cost of living? Do they know the difference between the high cost of living and inflation rates? Do they know why our ringgit was weak when in fact it was relatively strong and stable?

Do they know why allocations were hard to come by and the government appeared stingy? Do they understand why investments must be based on returns, complementary strength, and competency, and certainly not on ideology?

Public doesn’t understand govt’ quandary

Unfortunately, all these problems were told to the people rhetorically but never properly explained or substantiated. As a result, most people are now blaming the government for everything without realising that any government helming Malaysia today would face limited options to manoeuvre.

Most of us have seen and experienced how previous governments before the current one governed this country. Do we seriously think they could have done differently and better?

I think the people are being unreasonable. We expect instant gratification. We want so many goodies but not the costs and pains that come with them. We want subsidies when the Treasury is running out of options to repay debts and service interests.

We want a strong ringgit but we also want low interest rates. We complain about high living costs when this problem is worldwide following the pandemic. Everyone took the cash handouts but now we endlessly complain about high inflation.

When we complain about the government not doing enough, we must first find out how other countries are treating their people. In the US, to fight inflation, they keep the interest rates high. We have been too pampered to accept that our government must make hard decisions now or the whole nation will suffer.

The Pakatan Harapan government can go on behaving like previous governments - borrow and spend endlessly, keep all the subsidies and if possible, introduce even more new ones, dish out more “free money”, and ignore infrastructure development to divert money to attain popularity.

Yes, it will go on for a few more years before the whole nation completely sinks.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.