Kelantan remains the poorest state in Malaysia due to the
incompetence and misrule of Ahmad Yaakob and his predecessors fueled by the
political chicanery between UMNO and PAS. The average household income in
Kelantan today is the lowest in Malaysia and is about a third of a household in
Kuala Lumpur. Kelantan has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. The
risk of a new born child in Kelantan to die before reaching age 5 is twice
higher than that of a child in Kuala Lumpur. By very conservative estimates, 15%
of children in Kelantan live in poverty while at least 7% are under-nourished.
There is one doctor in Kelantan for every 500 children (compared to one doctor
for 80 children in Kuala Lumpur).
Instead of proper nutrition, health care, quality infrastructure,
education, skills, jobs and higher income, the poor in Kelantan can instead now
look forward to hudud law. There is
no evidence that Kelantan has a dramatically higher rate of hudud crimes than the rest of Malaysia.
Nor is there any evidence that Muslims in Kelantan have a higher proclivity
towards fornication, homosexuality, alcohol consumption, apostasy and stealing
thus requiring draconian deterrent punishments to keep them in line.
On the other hand, Kelantan’s poverty is in shocking contrast
to the oil revenues flowing from the state to the coffers in Putrajaya. It is
estimated that at least RM 1 billion in oil revenues that rightfully belong to
the people of Kelantan is being denied them by the BN government (read UMNO).
One would think that this would be the priority of Ahmad Yaakob and his
assemblymen, voting unanimously across party lines to seek legal recourse to
recover the state’s wealth to improve the lives of the poor rather than impose medieval
punishment on them.
Under the misrule of the supposedly pious and spiritual
leadership, the rich cultural heritage of Kelantan embodied in such arts as wayang kulit, mak yong and dikir barat
has been systematically denigrated. Instead, the Muslims in Kelantan are being
directed to look towards the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan to
emulate cultural practices that are completely alien to Malay traditions. In the
meantime, Kelantan’s rich biodiversity is being destroyed and the poor bear the
brunt of devastating floods caused by the wanton destruction of watershed areas
due to state sanctioned logging, poor planning and weak control of development.
It is time for the people of Kelantan to reject the hypocrisy of Ahmad Yaakob and his kind and punish them in the next elections. Kelantan does not deserve to be marginalized from the rest of Malaysia.
