When the PM himself raises “white flag”

Political, economic furore: When the PM himself raises “white flag”



PHILANTROPHIST-cum-investor Koon Yew Yin is in a state of dilemma because the price of his “pet” steel stock Leon Fuat Bhd has been on a reverse gear in the past few weeks.

The 84-year-old investment blogger is baffled as to why prices of steel counters in Bursa Malaysia have been heading south in recent times when “steel price has gone up about 50% in the last 12 months and all the steel companies are reporting increased profit.”

“Unfortunately, even the most profitable steel companies Leon Fuat has been dropping in the last few weeks,” he lamented in in his latest blog posting entitled “Investors in dilemma”.

The answer, he found out, lies in the subdued state of the local bourse amid the unabating COVID-19 cases which hovers in the 6,000 region, a far cry from the 4,000-mark which would enable the country to progress to Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan, thus facilitating the gradual re-opening of the “half-paralysed” Malaysian economy.

“COVID-19 and political uncertainty are depressing the stock market. The (Yang di-Pertuan) Agong has proposed the Parliament to reconvene as soon as possible,” Koon vented his frustration.

“Currently (Prime Minister Tan Sri) Mahiaddin (Yassin) has diarrhoea and is admitted to a hospital. The Chinese word for diarrhoea is lou sai or lai see. He is afraid to lose his premiership. I believe the stock market will rebound when a new prime minister is elected.”



Perhaps, Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown nailed it perfectly the sentiment felt by many Malaysians when she equated Mahiaddin’s hospital move as “an equivalent of raising the white flag like so many of his desperate countrymen have been forced to do”.

“Thousands have died following his PN (Perikatan Nasional) Government’s counter-productive ’emergency lockdowns’ of the past months, designed to keep themselves in office rather than tackle the pandemic,” she pointed out.



In fact, every strata of the Malaysian society has mocked the prime minister’s diarrhoea, as revealed on this Twitter feed.

“I have never, and could ever, imagine a head of government in any country, past, present and even perhaps future, would put out a formal statement, explaining the status of his bowels. Today is a very interesting day indeed.”

While it is good to be transparent and inform citizens on the well-being of their leaders, the Prime Minister’s Office has to buck up in its public relation exercise as the brouhaha can translate into “a comedy of errors”, which is detrimental to the reputation of Malaysia’s top leader. – July 1, 2021