KUALA LUMPUR, April 14 — PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has assured the Perikatan Nasional (PN) administration that the issue of a no-confidence vote will not arise if a special parliamentary session is convened to debate the country’s ongoing Covid-19 measures.

He said it is more important to focus on the economic and social impact that the pandemic will have on the nation, rather than debate political matters.

"For an ordinary sitting of Parliament, that is of course for the MPs to decide (on a vote of no confidence). I have made it quite clear before that the government should not use Covid-19 as an excuse to say they will be secure forever,” Anwar said during a Facebook Live session today.

The Port Dickson MP was also critical of what he deemed to be the lack of a central coherent message among PN’s leadership.

"You talk about helping the poor, you talk about helping economic hardships, yet at the same time, you talk about protecting the interests of your MPs and cronies. And this has to stop,” he said, referring to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Law Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan’s Sunday announcement that PN MPs not holding government positions will be made GLC heads instead.

Anwar also expressed concern that the stimulus package spending as announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin does not adequately meet the gap in earnings to protect the most affected population from food insecurity and starvation, especially children.

"The optimism recently expressed by the finance minister over some projections that Malaysia can recover to 5.8 per cent growth in 2021 is troubling, in light of the fact that we still do not know the full extent of the Covid-19 crisis impact, when it will end and how it will impact all of the economies which are linked to ours.

"For example, the movement control order will last at least six weeks and possibly longer. We know that a substantial majority of Malaysian workers have less than one month of savings to endure this period of hardship according to a report from the International Centre for Education in Islamic Finance,” he said.

Anwar quoted Statistics Department findings in which 35 per cent of those self-employed will lose at least 90 per cent of their income and another 46 per cent will lose their jobs altogether.

"During these times, effective leadership means managing the crisis with an honest appraisal of the problem absent sugarcoating and selective presentation of the data.

"When I look at the sum total of data about Malaysia’s exposure to Covid-19 crisis, in particular our exposure to falling oil and other commodity prices, the ongoing impact of Covid-19 to our most important trading partners including China, the United States as well as our friends in Asean, and the global impact of Covid-19 on tourism and trade, I urge our leadership to be more realistic in their pronouncements,” he said.