COMMENT | Madani budget lacks substance and oomph

COMMENT | Oxford Languages defines oomph as “the quality of being exciting, energetic, or sexually attractive”. But PMX and Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s budget this year lacked oomph and was only mildly better than the last one, which I described as bland but benign.

Last week’s budget was unexciting, unenergetic, and cannot be described as, in the positive connotation of the word, sexy.

It was sorely deficient and therefore a deficit in terms of the increasing negative perception of the prime minister. No amount of PR can undo that - only sensible, solid, and courageous steps of which there was a pronounced absence.

The previous budget announced end-February was before the six state elections and therefore may, I repeat, may have been a reason for not taking the tough and reformatory measures necessary to push this country of ours forward after years, no decades, of being stuck in the mud and slime by dirty, corrupt politicians.

With the next general election due more than four years from now and Anwar firmly in the top seat with a near-two-thirds majority (one short because of the shenanigans of the crybaby Muda MP) there’s no more excuse now.

It is time to...