KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is set to challenge the proclamation of emergency in court, saying it was a desperate attempt by the government to stay in power.
He said the Perikatan Nasional government's decision to get the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to declare an emergency has no solid basis and impractical.
"I have announced our intention to appeal to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to defend the Constitution and the rakyat from this egregious abuse of power.
"Also, our legal team has been instructed to prepare the application to challenge the Prime Minister (Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin) and the Government of Malaysia on their baseless declaration of a state of emergency," he said in a statement today.
Anwar who is also PKR president said the government should increase the people's knowledge on the sciences surrounding Covid-19 and encourage public discussions rather than getting engrossed in conspiracy theories.
He said new restrictions regarding the Movement Control Order 2.0 (MCO 2.0) were vaguely disseminated to the public, leaving them helpless.
"We long to unite with friends and family. And some of us are trapped beyond the restrictions of the MCO. Be that situations of domestic abuse, the isolation of cyberbullying, or even the hopelessness of poverty.
"Our lives have been put on hold for almost one year and this has had a profound effect. Many of us do not know if we will ever be able to go back to normal, and perhaps we do not. But what will there be on the other side of this? Will your career still exist?
"In times of crisis, people need transparency and reassurance, not what this minority government gives them. Not these sporadically planned announcements that give no clarity, no planning, and no sympathy for the people's needs.
"Instead, they incite panic as clouds gather."
Anwar said instead of declaring an emergency, the government should offer a consistent and detailed plan for the people and its fight against Covid-19.
Rather than patronising the people, Anwar said it was time the government treated Malaysians like adults instead of treating them as "insolent children in need of punishment."
He also said it was time the government started trusting the people so they too will start adhering to all Covid -19 standard operating procedures (SOP) set by the government.
"The present government asks us all to sacrifice, for we are all in this together, yet the government gives no evidence that it suffers along with the people, that it actually stands with the rakyat.
"MCO is becoming an annual exercise in futility, robbed of the meaning that gives life to tradition, leaving only the shell of a custom that produces no results. What was once called conditional, looks more and more permanent. The recovery was anything but.
"So, we are back to the point where we started. The physicist Albert Einstein put it best when he said 'the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'.
"Muhyiddin and his government have brought Malaysia to the brink of insanity."