NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
UITM Lecturer: Street Demos Can Undermine Country's Economy
(Bernama) - In the aftermath of the July 9 street demonstrations in the federal capital by an illegal organisation called Bersih 2.0 and groups aligned to it among them opposition parties, many individuals are perturbed by the potentially damaging impact of the protest on the country's economy.
University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Dungun campus political science lecturer Che Hamdan Mohd Razali acknowledged that the protesters' demands centred around freedom of speech and electoral reforms but noted that they they had not been able to substantiate their allegations but instead hurled condemnations at the government.
At a time when the government was trying its utmost to raise the living standard of the people and make Malaysia a high income nation by 2020 via the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), National Key Result Areas (NKRA) and Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP), such aggression was a setback, he opined.
"The government is still banking on foreign investment to spur our economic growth. There is only nine more years until 2020 left. That's not a long period.
"It is therefore crucial that a peaceful and conducive situation prevails in the country so that investors will not hesitate to come," he said.
He said political and economic stability was important in ensuring peace. If there was a crisis in politics, it would jeopardise the economy, and vice-versa.
"Both are interlinked and critical as a basic element in the growth and development of the country," he stressed.
Meanwhile, Mohamad Ariffin, a medical officer in the private sector, concurred that foreign investors would shy away from the country especially if the foreign media played up incidents which were just "a storm in a teacup".
He feared medical tourism which the country was trying to promote would be affected as well.
"Potential patients from other countries would think twice about coming here for treatment if they believe we are a troubled country," he said.
Another academician, Abd Ghapa Harun, Senior Lecturer at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's History, Political and Strategy Research Centre surmised that peace and harmony in the country could be sustained if the government readily responded to the issues that were being relentlessly harped on.
"For example, issues about corruption or the election - the government must respond to them immediately.
"Peace is not merely a demonstration-free situation. In a wider context, it is taking further measures to avoid confrontations including through dialogues and discussions before issues are blown out of proportion," he said.
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