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Prosecution of “tigers” and “crocodiles” are common in anti-corruption campaigns in China and Indonesia, but why not a single “shark” successfully prosecuted for corruption in Malaysia in over three decades?

When UMNO General Assembly was being held in the last week of November, the Merdeka Center for Opinion Research was carrying out a 10-day opinion survey from November 26 to December 5, 2014 and it found that public perception towards corruption in Malaysia remains unchanged since 2005 with at least 77% of Malaysian voters this year agreeing that corruption in the country is serious.

The survey done jointly with BFM Radio for World Anti-Corruption Day yesterday showed this perception appeared unchanged compared to similar polls conducted in August 2005 and June 2012 which found 76% and 78%, respectively, saying that corruption was seriously prevalent.

The survey found that 49% of Malaysians reported that corruption had increased, 20% felt it had remained unchanged while 21% felt it had decreased compared to one year ago.

The same survey also saw a majority, or 56%, of Malaysians perceiving the government’s fight against corruption left much to be desired despite recent successes by the anti-corruption commission.

These views were more apparent among younger voters and those with Internet access.

Could the Merdeka Center opinion survey on corruption perceptions be reliable or credible, – that it was unchanged since 2005 with seven out of 10 Malaysian voters still think Malaysia corrupt as well as the finding that 49% of Malaysians report that corruption had increased, 20% felt it had remained unchanged while 21% felt it had decreased compared to one year ago.

This is because these survey results fly in the face of the euphoria in the past few days, generated by government propagandists led by none other than the Prime Minister himself, that the country had achieved a major breakthrough in the fight against corruption resulting in Malaysia moving up to 50th spot among 175 countries in the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2014 ranking up from 53 last year. Continue reading “Prosecution of “tigers” and “crocodiles” are common in anti-corruption campaigns in China and Indonesia, but why not a single “shark” successfully prosecuted for corruption in Malaysia in over three decades?”

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Malaysian Dream Phase 2 – Call on Malaysians, regardless of political party, race, religion, region, gender or age to unite and stand up as patriots and moderates of Malaysia to practise the politics of inclusion to save the country from extremism, intolerance and bigotry

When I contested Gelang Patah in May last year in the 13th General Elections, it was in pursuit of the Malaysian Dream which envisions Malaysia as a plural society where all her citizens are united as one people, rising above their ethnic, religious, cultural, linguistic and regional differences as the common grounds binding them as one citizenship exceeds the differences that divide them because of their ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural and regional divisions.

Nineteen months after the 13th General Elections, the Malaysian Dream is more relevant and even more important than ever.

The UMNO General Assembly in the last week of November is the classic example of the divisive and deleterious politics of exclusion in Malaysia, which emphasises and deepens the differences among Malaysians especially over race and religion, which will even condemn Malaysia to the fate of a failed state if these trends are not checked and arrested, with worsening disunity and greater racial and religious polarisation as happened in the past 19 months since the 13GE.

In the UMNO General Assembly, as well as at the various conferences running up to it, Malaysians saw the worst examples of the politics of fear, hate and lies, creating imaginary fears and fighting imaginary enemies – that the Malays and Islam are under threat, that the Chinese are out to grab the political power of the Malays, that ”if UMNO loses, Malays may never rule again”, that the Malays have become slaves in their own land, that the Malays could suffer a fate similar to Red Indians in the United States and the “mother of all lies”, that the Chinese in Kedah burnt the Quran “page by page during a prayer ritual”.
Continue reading “Malaysian Dream Phase 2 – Call on Malaysians, regardless of political party, race, religion, region, gender or age to unite and stand up as patriots and moderates of Malaysia to practise the politics of inclusion to save the country from extremism, intolerance and bigotry”