C4: More focus needed on gov't policies over scandals, drama

Public fascination with local political drama and scandals should not side-track focus from monitoring the government's ability to fulfil its election promises.

Speaking as a panellist at a forum organised by think-tank Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) in Kuala Lumpur today, Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) director Cynthia Gabriel pointed out that the public is generally more interested to discuss political scandals than government policies.

"In the next four years, what is our role?

"We are more fixated about this kind of things: Pakatan Harapan's internal feud boils over, political dramas, sex videos, the works," she said in discussing the forum's title, 'The Next Four Years: What Now for Malaysia?'.

In calling out the media's role in highlighting such matters over other more pressing issues, she conceded there was also high interest in the more sensational stories.

"It is also (because of) us. We want to know whether the sex videos are genuine, the political scandals…," she said.

At the same time, Cynthia pointed out that the reported "power struggle" in Harapan over Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's successor has also been a subject of popular interest.

"Go to the kopitiams and people will be talking about who will be the next prime minister. Is it A or is it the other A?

"This is what is slowing us down also.

“Sometimes we focus on things that take us away from where we need to go," she said in urging civil society groups and the public to actively push for better policies from the government.

Commenting on the government's progress so far, Cynthia, among others, reiterated criticisms over the process of making key appointments without going through parliamentary scrutiny as initially promised by Harapan.

Earlier, Ideas launched the second report from its Projek Pantau initiative to monitor selected promises made by Harapan in its election manifesto, particularly in areas of education, economy and institutional reforms. - Mkini