KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — Outgoing British prime minister Mary Elizabeth Truss’ style of government shared a lot of similarities with Malaysia’s very own caretaker prime minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, Lim Guan Eng said today.
The DAP chairman said that Truss’ economic policies and U-turns that forced her to announce her resignation from office yesterday mirrored those made by the Umno leader in Malaysia whom he blamed for making post-Covid economic recovery difficult.
“Like in the UK, Malaysians also suffer from a hike in interest rates and escalating inflation and cost of living as well as the threat of an economic recession,” Lim said in a statement.
He claimed that “Malaysia is worse off than the UK” because of its rampant corruption and cited the RM9 billion littoral combat ship procurement scandal and the government’s failure to charge anyone in court as an example to support his assertion.
He also repeated his criticism of Ismail Sabri’s recent remarks about sacking 12 Perikatan Nasional ministers over a letter to the King objecting to Parliament’s dissolution, saying the caretaker PM’s U-turns on that issue made the latter a dubious fit to lead the next government.
He said that unlike Truss who resigned, Ismail Sabri has remained “unrepentant about his failures and has chosen instead to brazenly ask for Malaysians to return Umno and him to power”.
“Liz Truss’ resignation is a timely reminder of the importance of political accountability for mismanaging the economy and that Malaysians must punish Umno and Ismail Sabri for policy failures and U-turns,” Lim added.
Truss who became UK prime minister six weeks ago, just before the death of Queen Elizabeth II, announced her resignation yesterday, marking the shortest stint in office.
Her tenure has been described as chaotic after she announced huge tax cuts said to benefit the rich amid an economic and energy crisis in the UK that she later reversed and sacking several of her Cabinet members.
