NO political party is perfect, but like haemorrhoids, Barisan Nasional’s BS about the Malaysian economy keeps coming back nastier and more annoying than ever.

But, it does not mean that we need to be vulnerable to them. Here is how you can catch BN’s BS about the economy in 2018:

Watch for BN’s promise that it will make Malaysia one of “the top 20 countries in the world”.

This is exactly the kind of political “promise” that has led respected economists to roll their eyes. For example, Malaysia does not even crack the G20 of the world’s leading economies, in contrast with its neighbours with even smaller populations. Malaysia does not rank in the Trillion Dollar GDP Club either (BN’s most recent target was RM1 trillion).

Nor does Malaysia contribute a significant share to the global economy – its contribution is less than half of 1% of the world’s gross domestic product. For all of BN’s self-congratulatory bragging, the size of Malaysia’s entire economy is smaller than that of the US state of Wisconsin.

Count how many times BN claims that the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and respected international organisations praise the BN government.

Actually, the World Bank, IMF, UN and other international organisations have consistently criticised the Malaysian government for the country’s weak education system, high household debt, traffic jams that cost Malaysia losses of US$20 billion (RM80 billion) a year, a youth unemployment rate that is more than triple that of adults, Asia’s worst-performing stock market and more.

The newest World Bank “Malaysia Economic Monitor” also forecasts that the economy will get weaker. In 2018, Malaysia’s growth rate will lower to 5.2%, then in 2019, it will decrease further, to 5%.

Has BN received nothing but criticism? Of course not. But, it hasn’t been all praise, either.

Watch for BN’s claim that it has kept 97.6% of its promises in its 13th general election manifesto.

In fact, BN’s numerous broken promises have been meticulously documented here, here, here and here, falling far short of 97.6%. BN politicians might also claim that 2.3 million jobs were created because of the government (probably not), but listen to whether they mention that the vast majority of these jobs are low-skilled ones.

They might also tend to neglect to say that the number of unemployed people is actually still rising since the end of 2017. Worse, both the value of the ringgit and gross national income per capita have dramatically fallen under Najib Razak’s watch over the last 10 years.

BN did not keep other promises, either. For example, two of Najib’s biggest failures are his “1Malaysia” fiasco and his “Global Movement of Moderates”, which ended up neither global, nor a movement, nor moderate.

Evaluate if BN politicians can pass the “Sheila Majid Test”.

As Sheila tweeted, Malaysia’s four urgent economic crises are: the rising price of goods, weakening ringgit, skyrocketing cost of living and lack of jobs. If any BN politicians explain actual solutions to any of these four problems, then they might be worth listening to a bit more.

But, if you notice that they are unable to explain specific policies that address Malaysia’s current economic challenges – then, it’s time to call them out, like Sheila did.

Lastly, it should be made clear that all Malaysian political parties have the tendency to spin facts, or try and take credit for things they did not achieve. However, the current BN-led government has a lot more to lose, so prepare yourself accordingly.

* Athena Angel 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.