LETTER | Realities which for those impacted by the pandemic have long meant stress over whether the bills can be paid and food put on the table.

Homes, too, aren’t always safe or healthy to live in as the space required for social isolation isn’t available to everyone, as people experiencing poverty are required to settle for poor quality accommodation, or live in cramped, overcrowded housing for the sake of having a roof.

A group of youth in Kuantan, Pahang, who lost a close friend to suicide as a result of severe financial difficulty started the White Flag campaign due to their widespread unhappiness with how the Perikatan Nasional government was handling the pandemic.

White flags mainly appeared in lower middle-class neighbourhoods and suburbs. Stories soon emerged of families who resorted to putting them up after feeding their children snacks for days because they could not afford anything else.

Aid announced includes an allocation to each lawmaker to implement the Food Basket Aid for the needy in their respective constituencies. But much of the aid did not reach those who really needed it, especially the B40 who have difficulties accessing it.

Author Hanna Alkaf and a group of volunteers would not have started the Kitajagakita initiative for people to donate or volunteer their services, which your government later hijacked to make it as if it is a government initiative.

The rakyat mobilised to help each other in the face of what is widely perceived to be inconsistent and illogical Covid-19 management by the government launching food banks and offers of free food across the country, with tables of cooked food or dry packaged goods set up at shop fronts or petrol stations for anyone who needed them.

Others reached out to restock the tables and shelves as they swiftly emptied.

Where were the politicians from PN?

Quick like lightning, they jumped on the bandwagon and claim it as their personal initiative.

In the 16 months from early 2020 to mid-2021, more than 300,000 have lost their jobs in the retail sector alone, with 30 percent of shops closed for good.

As of March 2021, 100 hotels had closed permanently.

A police report in 2021 cited 468 suicides between January and May 2021, when the country moved into movement control order (MCO) 3.0; this works out to an average of three suicides a day. This is a substantial increase compared to a 2018 police report citing 1,696 deaths by suicide between 2014 and 2018 (0.93 suicides per day).

Most alarmingly, of the reported suicides since MCO 1.0, 51 percent are youths aged between 15 to 18 years old.

Online schooling over the Covid-19 period has resulted in many losing interests and access to education, especially boys from families at the bottom 40 percent of income earners (B40). This added to existing secondary school dropout rates, which already hovered at eight to 10 percent, especially in rural and B40 areas.

Fault lines in our society suddenly appeared when people started questioning and felt threatened by the presence of migrant workers.

Both the health and economic injustices experienced have become abundantly clear to everyone.

When communities rally around one another, it was abundantly clear that the government led by Muhyiddin Yassin failed.

Far more terrifying and visible than the last global recession this time is the lack of exceptional responses to the velocity of the economic free fall.

Did the government of Muhyiddin listen and act?

Did he turn all these into meaningful changes for the people and the country?

If Muhyiddin did his job as the prime minister and prioritised the people, all of these wouldn't have happened.

Now he is saying he had done well in dealing with the unprecedented health crisis despite criticisms of prolonged lockdowns that some have blamed for a rise in unemployment and poverty rates.

Wow.

People are facing hardship and they are not faking it like how you are asking about your government's inefficiency and failure.

They are also uncertain how long the impact of the pandemic would last and how quickly unemployment would come down.

The rakyat collectively is waking up to the reality and realising their place in the grand scheme of things of the politicians in this country. And the rakyat knows its power and most importantly, its value, their votes come this Saturday.

Now the rakyat is beginning to realise people come first and only they themselves can make this happen.

While Najib was jailed for stealing from the rakyat, Muhyiddin will be remembered for stealing the constitutional rights of the rakyat ie their mandate of 2018 in February 2020.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.