PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir urged Malaysians to give the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government five years to implement its pledges.
At the end of the five year period the people can evaluate and judge the performance of the PH government, he said.
Dr Mahathir said Malaysians who no longer had faith on the government could determine their future through the ballot box in the 15th General Election (GE15).
He said at the moment the government found it tough to achieve its aims due to the severe damage caused by the previous administration to the nation.
“If you no longer have faith (with the government) you can vote in the GE15, they (the people) determine but we promised a lot and will take five years (to implement the pledges) before we can keep our promise.
“But what happened during the drawing-up of the manifesto, we didn't get full information and when took over (the government), we find the damage done by the previous government was far more serious than we thought.
“This was what caused us difficulty to achieve out goal (keeping the 14th General Election manifesto pledges),” he said.
Dr Mahathir was speaking after officiating the 58th Annual General Meeting of the Malaysian Muslim Welfare Organisation (Perkim), here today.
The Prime Minister was commenting on The National Worry Index (NWI) survey outcome by think-tank EMIR Research, which revealed that Malaysians are in a state of high anxiety
surrounding issues the cost of living, jobs, economics and security.
The think-tank’s survey also found that respondents were either unsure or disagreed that the Pakatan Harapan was competitive and the nation was on the right track or that Malaysia’s economy was on solid foundation.
The survey was conducted between Sept 5 and Oct 10, involving 1,992 respondents comprising 65.6 per cent Malays and Bumiputera, Chinese (28.2 per cent) and Indians (6.2 percent).
Dr Mahathir explained that there were also many factors which caused the cost of living to increase, including the weak Ringgit and transportation cost.
“We are facing a problem involving the cost of living due to the fact that some quarters had devalued our currency.
“If in the past, one US Dollar gave you RM3.80, its is now RM4.20. Due to this currency value, everything we buy has become costlier as our currency had devalued. This is one reason and the government is discussing this.
“The prices of some goods have also seen a reduction, but the people do not see that,” he said.
In a separate development, Dr Mahathir said the government needed to conduct a thorough review of the Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) as it was difficult to determine security cases.
He said the government did not want to take the easy path of releasing terrorists who were found to be involved in crimes such as bombing.
At the same time, he said the government could not detain suspects for a long period of time for criminal offences such as undermining the economy without proper evidence.