KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is not a failed state, however is a nation in decline, says banker Tan Sri Nazir Razak.
Sharing his ideas in a dialogue on Malaysia’s future challenges in the course of the International Book Fair 2022 at World Trade Centre right here, Nazir mentioned Malaysia has many challenges, however probably the most crucial ones are corruption and weak financial progress.
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These issues, he mentioned, happen on account of the truth that the nation is now dominated by “a three-headed monster” – cash politics, id politics and excessive centralisation of energy.
“Unfortunately, we are facing all these as we move into the 4.0 industrial revolution that values manpower and entrepreneurship which will give the nation a chance to leapfrog. If we don’t leapfrog, we will decline quickly.
“Malaysia, in my opinion, is not a failed state but we are a nation in decline,” he mentioned on Friday (June 3) when selling his e book, “What’s in a Name”.
Nazir mentioned efforts to deal with cash and id politics and excessive centralisation of energy have to be accomplished concurrently, or it might both fail or obtain solely non permanent success.
“Abdullah Badawi, Najib and Mahathir tried to deal with them, but they did it separately. Remember the concept of Islam Hadhari, GLC transformation, new economic model and so on, every reshuffle will not succeed because there are vested interests that will use racial and religious issues.
“Successful reforms such as the GLC reformation were eliminated because there was no political reform; GLC was abused for political purposes,” he added.
Nazir mentioned the Malaysia 2.0 system that was adopted for the reason that May 13 tragedy has change into out of date, and the nation wants a new mannequin, particularly Malaysia 3.0, which must be launched by way of the observe of deliberative democracy.
“In the post May 13 era, Tun Razak introduced the National Consultative Council (Mapen), which gathered experts and representatives from various backgrounds to discuss ideas to develop Malaysia.
“This idea prompted me and 54 other figures from various backgrounds to propose to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the government to establish the Better Malaysia Assembly.
“Its members will reflect the people’s composition and aspirations of the country.
“They will sit down and find a point of agreement on the solution to the challenges that we mentioned earlier,” he mentioned, including that the identical methodology was adopted by 28 different international locations together with Chile and Belgium.
Nazir mentioned up to now, dialogue on the institution of the Better Malaysia Assembly continues to be ongoing, including that there has additionally been engagements with the King.
“I understand there are those who agree and disagree. For now, I want to meet those who disagree and understand why. Maybe our explanation is unclear because to me, this idea is quite simple, we want to have a people’s conference to come out with the Malaysia 3.0 model.
“We do not want Malaysia 3.0 to be built by only getting the views of the elites, we want ordinary people to join the discussion and find solutions to the country’s challenges.
“Maybe the reason we can’t change the current system is that we only listen to representatives of political parties that have their own party and personal interests and the elites. We need to go beyond by bringing (in) ordinary Malaysians,” he added.
