By NNN-Bernama
Putrajaya, Malaysia : Gerakan Advisor Dr Lim Keng Yaik today said that the Gerakan has every confidence in Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s administration but added that he needs to “think deeper and a lot” on the signals sent by the rakyat (people) in the general election.
He also said that Gerakan was committed to the Barisan Nasional (BN) and would not leave the coalition. However, he said the prime minister should get the right advice for his administration.
The BN would not have experienced such an outcome if the prime minister had received the right advice, he told reporters on his last day as the Minister of Energy, Water and Telecommunications at his ministry, here.
The BN failed to retain its two-third majority and lost five states — Kelantan, Penang, Kedah, Perak and Selangor states in the polls on Saturday.
The BN secured 140 parliamentary seats out of 222 seats. Keng Yaik attributed the national political `tsunami’ as the main and sole reason for Gerakan’s failure to keep Penang state.
The BN component party won only two Parliamentary seats out of 12 seats contested and four state seats of 31 contested.
“The federal government should look into matters that had angered the people and should not show any discrimination against the other races including the minority group,” he said.
He said the public delivery system must be improved and the government must give equal attention on policy and implementation aspects.
“The Malays as well as the non-Malays are angry because they have the perception that the government lacks transparency and is not clean enough,” he said. “We have to show (that the government is transparent and clean), not just talk about them,” he said.
In fighting corruption, the government must be actively seen pursuing the matter, he said.
Gerakan as a member of the 14-party coalition felt that BN should not sweep things under the carpet when facing problems, he said.
“Each component member should not be afraid of each other. Even sensitive issues, they must be discussed in camera (behind closed doors),” he said.
He said BN should feel lucky as they were not totally wiped out in this general election after 50 years in existence.
“The Gerakan will play a more active role to ensure that the government will look deeply into the grouses of the people who want a more transparent and clean government by improving the government’s delivery system,” he said.
Keng Yaik also hit out at some BN elected representatives who were arrogant and did things that caused unease to certain communities.
“We don’t need cowboys on the ground…(we) need to discipline them,” said Keng Yaik, who added that such arrogant behaviour could be seen in annual meetings of some political parties and in Parliament.
“We need a lot of soul searching. We must clean up money politics. BN component parties must work for the party and not suck the party,” he said.
He also suggested to the government to consider introducing a new and improved economic policy to replace the New Economic Policy to encompass all communities following the severe losses in the just-concluded general election.