KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 27 — DAP’s Lim Kit Siang has called for a reset of the country’s policies and institutions to steer the nation towards the right course and ensure it lives up to its full potential. 

The Iskandar Puteri MP called for a 10-year plan to be implemented to undo the systemic damage within the country brought upon by dated affirmative action plans and made worse by the increasing culture of corruption. 

He said Malaysians must be prepared to put in the effort to ensure the country progresses and stops regressing and losing out to neighbouring countries in terms of competitiveness, governance standards and anti-corruption efforts. 

"We must pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and stop regressing and work to fulfil our promise to be a world-class great nation. This is not going to be achieved in a year or two, not even in a decade or two, but let all Malaysians have common vision to achieve the objective of a world-class great nation by before Malaysia’s Centennial in 2057 — in 36 years’ time. 

"The time has come for a major rest of national policies and institutions. There should be a ten-year plan to undo the deviations and injustices of the New Economic Policy and the curse of corruption which are the major causes for Malaysia losing out to other countries in the past half-a-century,” Lim said during a speech at a DAP dialogue in Johor on Friday night. 

The DAP stalwart then commended a recent proposal drafted by 58 prominent Malaysians also calling for a reset of national policies, endorsed by the likes of Tan Sri Nazir Razak, Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan and former deputy prime minister Tun Musa Hitam. 

Among the suggestions within the proposal is the formation of a deliberative platform dubbed the Better Malaysia Assembly, which would consist of lawmakers, NGOs and non-partisan professionals from civil society. 

The proposal included how recommendations from the Assembly would then be referred to the Parliament but any policy decision stemming from these suggestions would be subjected to the Yang Di Pertuan Agong’s endorsement. 

Lim in his address had also backed the formation of the Better Malaysia Assembly platform and called on Malaysians to adopt the "Malaysian First” mentality, instead of profiling people according to race or religion. 

"This is in fact embodied in the five Rukun Negara principles, which must be given new life as we cannot have Cabinet Ministers who do not subscribe to these basic nation-building policies in Malaysia’s plural society,” he said without mentioning specific names. 

Lim included how it would be an opportune time to reaffirm the country’s adherence towards the Rukun Negara on Sunday, November 28, as it coincides with the 99th day of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri’s 100-day report card benchmark. 

"I hope he (Ismail) would declare that his ‘Keluarga Malaysia’ concept is fully founded on the five Rukun Negara principles,” Lim added.