MALAYSIA
Poll shows distrust in democratic system, and better informed Malaysians, say analysts, critics
The results of the latest Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) survey, which showed Malaysians perceiving political parties as the most corrupt among several institutions, are a worrying sign of distrust in the country’s democratic system, anti-graft campaigners and analysts said.
They also said that such an awareness was due to the rising cost of living and better internet services, which have educated Malaysians on how corruption by politicians affect their lives.
Independent pollster Merdeka Center said the findings by TI-M matched the results of one of their own surveys.
Its director Ibrahim Suffian said while Malaysians have experienced small-scale corruption such as bribery in the police force, they “still saw grand corruption as being a serious problem”.
TI-M yesterday released the first-ever Malaysian Corruption Barometer (MCB) 2014, which found that Malaysians viewed political parties as being more corrupt than the police, civil servants and Members of Parliament and the legislature.
The survey interviewed 2,000 Malaysians, 45% of whom said political parties were the most corrupt, followed by the police (42%), public officials and civil servants (31%) and Parliament and legislature (23%).
Last year, the Global Corruption Barometer found that 78% of Malaysians perceived the police to be the most corrupt.
The MCB survey also showed that the public were sceptical of the government's anti-corruption efforts, with 38% of Malaysians saying they are ineffective.
PKR's Rafizi Ramli (pic, left), who founded the National Oversight and Whistleblowers Centre (NOW), said the survey showed that Malaysians were beginning to make the connection between government wastage and graft and how it affected them.
The greater awareness coincided with better reach of the internet among all levels of society and how the value of their money is shrinking over the rising price of goods and services, he said.
“Over the last few years their financial situation got worse. While they endured cuts to fuel subsidies, they saw that political cronies were getting big government projects.
“Before, they didn’t see this connection. But now, they realise that if corruption goes unpunished, it affects the public,” said Rafizi.
Dr Wong Chin Huat of think-tank Penang Institute, said the results of the survey were alarming, and believed that this goes beyond cronies misusing public funds for rickety government projects.
He said the survey findings reflected the extent to which political parties will follow their principles and keep their promises in their quest for power.
“The perceived corruption of political parties suggests both an acute awareness of political parties' tremendous power in horse-trading, sometimes even colluding between the Barisan Nasional and the opposition.
“But also a frustrating sense of helplessness that the citizens have no control of them even though theoretically voters can punish parties at ballot boxes,” said Wong.
However, Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed (pic, right), who heads the Public Accounts Committee, reacted negatively to the results of the survey.
He said Malaysians were “immature” when it came to assessing the government’s efforts to tackle corruption and that they were obsessed about "headline-grabbing" cases of graft.
The survey’s results were also contrary to the government’s systematic measures of the past few years to tackle wastage and corruption, Nur Jazlan said.
“We are plugging loopholes and going after corrupt officials.
“Don’t just pick and choose cases. Over the past few years there has been a decline in the number of cases of wastage.
“Even if you look at the big cases such as the NFC, action has been taken and the case is on-going in court,” he said, referring to the National Feedlot Corporation scandal which involved a RM250 million soft-loan to a company headed by the husband of Wanita Umno chief Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil. – May 15, 2014.
COMMENTS ( 22 )
Only with complete financial collapse will we be able to get rid of all the corrupt politicians and government officials.
Until the country's coffers and the people's savings run dry, these greedy people will continue plundering!
It is a depressingly pessimistic outlook but there really is no other way out for Malaysia!
pls show us the statistic/figures. Dont just talk. pls convince us by showing the following data :
All Cases highlighted (don pick & choose) & date / Action Done-pending ??/ still Under investigation?? /legal action??/court award??/Amount recover ???(we hv not heard of any so far!!!)
Then make your conclusion again base on the above , who is right???
Nearly 1/4 of the country thinks the judiciary is corrupt.
That is a HUGE figure, when you consider that in our (fast-disintegrating) system of democracy, the judges are the last resort for citizen's rights against the state.
24% of Malaysians don't think so any more.
Bearing in mind that most Malaysians get their "truth" from Bernama, Utusan and TV3, that is quite a worrying figure.
I bet that before 1988, the figure would have been much lower, back in the days when judges actually were fairly independent.
Thank you, Uncle Mahathir, for "curing" them of that.
The Rakyat are wise and mature enough to discern between
Plugging loop-holes and going after small fries in numbers ,
and Expanding giant holes for big sharks in billions greater value.
Question is are we immature ? i dont think so.. its only you and your bunch of cronies are walloping the coffers at the expense of tax payers money.. cant you see it? or one eye close . You help me , i help you syndrome.
The police itself and the laws are in themselves adequate
But they cant and do not work
Why ?
because the political resolve is not there, the present lot dont care
Only politicians with absolute integrity can wipe out this menace
the rakyat will soon vote them in
because the people have had enough of the present hopeless lot
There is ample proof of corruption abuse and mismanagement of public funds
People are not stupid
Look at the surplus budget in Penang and Selangor
How is it that these states now have surplus when they were always broke before ?
Look at Singapore.
How is it that despite lacking in natural resources even food and water to feed its people, its surplus therefore its currency is several times bigger ! stronger !
Where has all OUR wealth gone.
For every ringgit of tax payers money spent, how much, how many % is going into
the pockets of corrupt officials
Anyone knows ?
All the labs done, all the interviews with different stakeholders, all the proposal and reports being written, all the paper usedfir printing, drawing charts etc...what does PEMANDU have to show us, the Rakyat of Malaysia?
Have you betrayed our hopes and aspirations from all the lofty things you promised us? You wanted to give us a better Malaysia, and we believed in you.
This poll showed that you have failed us. Failed us with a great sense of disappointment.
Corruption in political parties does not mean the distrust in the democratic system. It just means distrust on the politician. Saying you distrust democracy is like saying, we want to go back to Autocracy or worst Theocracy.
Perception ? my foot !
Arrest and charged the big sharks, there are so many cases for all Malaysians to see, why no action?
Corruption will be a way of life in Malaysia for as long as UMNObaru/BN is in power?