PETALING JAYA, Jan 19 – Malaysia’s political system is “rotten” and in need of change due to corruption which has led to power abuse, Bersih co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenesasan told a forum today.
The senior lawyer said graft has led to the disintegrating values that now dictate the country’s political order – a “rotten” system she claimed gave rise to the various woes afflicting the country including breeding a society which rationalises power abuse and corruption.
“The core (of the system) is rotten because of corruption. If the leaders don’t see anything wrong with this then how are we to fight it,” Ambiga told a forum entitled “The State of the Nation” jointly hosted by think-tanks ICCM, IDEAS and English paper The Malay Mail.
Today’s talk was part of a series of dialogues held to discuss the present challenges facing Malaysia.
In her speech, the former Bar Council president said corruption played a crucial role in the country’s racial strife while graft helped design a system that restricts civil liberties aimed at preserving the status quo and protect the interests of those in power.
The Bersih leader cited as examples the alleged attempt at “brainwashing” students under the purportedly racist Buro Tata Negara programme and the recent fiasco involving a seemingly pro-establishment speaker berating a student for supporting the poll reform movement at a forum organised by a public university.
Students who formerly went for the BTN courses had revealed that the programmes carried strong racial and anti-opposition messages which portrayed them as anti-Malays or anti-Muslims. Some claimed that anti-Chinese sentiment had also been included in its syllabus.
Meanwhile the student who was berated at the forum held at University Utara Malaysia in Kedah on December 8 claimed the event was also an indoctrination programme. The incident was videotaped and posted on the video sharing website Youtube and had since went viral.
Ambiga said this was symptomic of the corruption problem where to protect those profiting from patronage politics, racism had been planted in the education system to condition students against voting for anyone but the Barisan Nasional government.
“It is a symptom of what’s happening in our education system. We have history rewritten. I have heard horrifying stories about the BTN courses where we can see attempts at brainwashing,” she said.
Ambiga noted that the ruling coalition had also tried to cling on to power by manufacturing consent through its control over the media which the senior lawyer said was crucial in shaping public silence on the fight against corruption.
“What we see is media indoctrination... this is why we need a fair media,” she said, adding that the issue was among Bersih’s key demands in its fight for free and fair elections.
The poll reform group leader, however, said she believed current voters are more empowered due to the existence of independent online news portals which provided critical and impartial information that would help them make informed “decisions”.
A strong opposition had also contributed to the voter-empowerment process, said Ambiga.
“We need a strong opposition. Because of this strong opposition scandals (involving the government) had been exposed. The same can be said about BN. A strong opposition is needed to provide a check and balance regardless of who is in power”.
In closing her speech, the Bersih leader said any government must make the reparation of the country’s broken political system a key component starting with making the fight against graft as its top policy.
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