Has the government kept its promises one year on?

One year has passed since the General Elections 2013 (GE13) and Malaysia’s political scene has become no less colourful.

From rallies against GST to the hudud issue, politics in the country has definitely been eventful.

However, one year on there has been many issues which the government has yet to tackle.

Political science professor at Monash University, Professor James Chin feels that one of the biggest issues the government has yet to tackle is the increasing cost of living in urban areas.

“It has become worse in the Klang Valley, it's more expensive now,” he lamented in a phone interview with Astro AWANI.

“Overall the government is in a political crisis mode, everything goes directly back to the results last year, the results indicate that there was a massive swing against the government by Chinese voters, and that they lost the urban vote,” he stressed.

He explained that due to the election results, the current government did not expect to lose so heavily especially with urban Chinese voters, and hence turned very right wing much to the detriment of urbanites.

In the light of this issue, University Science Malaysia (USM) political analyst, Associate Professor Sivamurugan Pandian suggested that the government will need to re-strategise.

“They need to re-strategise, MCA needs to ensure whether they can find a new wave in the current political arena to improve the relationship with the people, so they can translate that into support later,” he said.

The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015 has also worried many Malaysians that the cost of living will increase even further.

Sivamurugan said that the government has to educate the society that the implementation of the GST will benefit them.

“They need to do more in a simple way so the public can understand more about the GST and its importance to the nation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Principal Research Fellow of the Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA) at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Professor Dr Mansor Mohamad Noor said that politicians must be aware that the people are bored with the constant bickering among politicians to the extent that the agenda of nation building is forgotten.

Sivamurugan believes that the government will need to revisit its manifesto to monitor current policies and implement them better.

As for the opposition, the hudud bill that is being pushed by PAS is causing some discontent between coalition members of which partnership was built after GE12.

The decision by PAS to propose a Private Member's Bill in the lower parliamentary house to enable the Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II which contains hudud law elements, to be implemented in Kelantan has caused disappointment with DAP.

“Post one year, can the opposition coalition work together? If the bill is passed will DAP still want to part of the coalition?” asked Sivamurugan.

A year after GE13, it is clear that there are still some issues that needs to be ironed out by the government, but they have another 4 more years to make things right.