INDEED the Pakatan Harapan government is drawing more and more flak from everywhere, day by day. 

Corporate corridors, social media and kopitiam corners are rife with shaking heads as people start asking serious questions of the dashed hopes and unfulfilled promises of the new government. 

In essence there are three yardsticks that can be the measure of why citizens are becoming increasing weary of the Dr M “miracle”. 

The nationwide smoking ban, the comic book ban and the use of Friday sermons to forward politically vested interests (or what I call “patronage politics”) – these three best explain why the new leadership is not performing as well as it could be with the headstart given by the voters in GE14. 

Policy-making is short-sighted. 

Decision-making is knee-jerk. 

Political patronage has gone skywards. 

There is a video making its round lately. Kishore Mahbubani, Chunqiu Senior Fellow at the China Institute, and former dean at Lee Kuan Yew Public Policy School shares why and how Singapore managed to join the ranks of developed nations using the “MPH formula”. 

Perhaps it will help to show us why we are failing to achieve that given the re-minted Umno-Barisan Nasional political framework of the emerging new government of the day. 

The nationwide smoking ban; the comic book ban and the use of Friday sermons to forward political vested interests – all these indicate we are bankrupt of the “MPH” that made Singapore so successful. 

We lack the M for meritocracy; we abandoned the P for pragmatism; and we certainly continue to be bankrupt of the H for honesty. 

The question is how long more will our nation be able to weather the fast changing global arena with our symptoms as reflected in the nationwide smoking ban, the comic book ban and the use of Friday sermons to forward political vested interests. 

*J. D. Lovrenciear reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.