KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been urged to ignore the criticism against him by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and instead focus on introducing as many institutional reforms as possible as the former may not have a full term of five years to do so.
DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said Anwar could be staring at the worst in the country's history for the 2022 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranking from the Transparency International (TI) due to be released next month.
Lim said at this juncture, it would be too late for Anwar to bring a change and improve the country's standing in the 2022 CPI ranking
"(Moving forward) Anwar should do his utmost to ensure that Malaysia's TI 2023 CPI Report is the best for the country, even better than the TI 2019 CPI Report, which was the best in 25 years since Transparency International started its annual CPI series in 1995," Lim said in his latest entry on his blog today.
He said this can achieved if Anwar makes full use of the upcoming parliament session in February next year by coming up with a new public integrity plan.
He said the proposals for a Malaysian National Anti-Corruption Plan to place Malaysia among the top 30 countries in the world in public integrity should be launched during the February 2023 parliament session.
"That will give a great start for the February 2023 parliament and the Anwar's unity government.
"It is one of the greatest regrets that the unconstitutional and illegal Sheraton Move political conspiracy in February 2020 which toppled the duly-elected Pakatan Harapan (PH) government after 22 months also ended Malaysia's effort to become one of the world's top 30 countries in public integrity by 2030," he added.
It was reported earlier this year that Malaysia dropped five spots in the 2021 CPI, to 62nd position out of 180 countries in terms of public sector corruption.
In 2020 the country ranked 57, while in 2019 it was placed at 51.
Lim added that the PH chairman has rightly submitted himself to a vote of confidence in the two-day meeting of parliament last week.
"Anwar should build on the momentum by initiating a series of institutional reforms to make Malaysia a first-rate world-class plural nation.
"Dr Mahathir had missed the historic opportunity to make Malaysia great again and this is the mistake which Anwar should not repeat," said the DAP veteran.