If the politicians are corrupt, the ordinary voters who voted for them are equally corrupt because they voted for these politicians.
In this country, politicians convince ordinary voters to vote those candidates who are of the same race and religion or give incentives to them to vote for the politicians.
The politicians are spending a lot of monies to convince the ordinary voters.
Although the Election Offences Act limits campaign expenditure for individuals contesting a parliamentary seat (RM 200,000) and a state seat (RM 100,000), there are no limits on how much a party and a candidate can spend during an election.
Even though the political parties are governed under the Societies Act 1960 where they are required to submit their audited financial statement to the Registrar of Societies, they do not have to reveal the sources of their donations.
The lack of transparency and accountability surrounding political financing, therefore lends credibility to suspicions about how money influences politics and policy.
To recover the monies spent, the political parties and politicians have to get it back from somewhere.
In the sum of all these, does this mean that the ordinary rakyat in this country is like corrupt leaders?
Or are they like corrupt leaders who call themselves good, fair and honest?
Or are they like corrupt leaders who, like a snake oil salesman, promise to fight corruption?
Generally, non-corrupt and honest leaders never promise that, as they know that the endemic corruption in this country is so pervasive that it needs more than just political will and rhetoric, even just to reduce or minimize it.
Corrupt leaders don’t have to worry about that because they know non-corrupt leaders are not a threat to them.
Corrupt leaders offer snake-oil solutions that please the voters, while non-corrupt know that the only way to solve things is hard work and time, something which they don’t have also.
Often it includes education and letting go of the ways of doing things.
Corrupt leaders tell people how great they are, good, decent, honest, just like themselves.
People like that.
In reality, a lot of the ordinary rakyat are corrupt themselves.
They do little, pointless things because they are small, and they can say it’s not corruption.
They conveniently sit at home and do nothing to help to correct the wrongs thinking it is not their problem to solve or correct it.
They would constantly find wrongs with the politicians.
They would blame the system, forgetting that they themselves are the bread and butter of the whole game.
For example, a principal in a school gives admission to an undeserving student in return for favours from the parents or people recommending it.
Management is not promoting the most deserving candidate.
Doctors give preference to family members.
Entrepreneurs make their children the next CEO or successors.
Stealing toilet paper from work.
Evading one’s work responsibilities.
Staff taking out personal printouts from the companies' printers.
Isn't all these a form of abuse of power, theft and acts of corruption by the ordinary rakyat themselves?
We cannot say politicians steal from the taxpayers when the ordinary rakyat abuse and steal too.
Generally, the majority of the ordinary rakyat want to be told they are decent people and definitely not corrupt themselves.
So they choose politicians who lied about it.
They choose politicians who say the problem is somewhere else.
The chain starts from the ordinary rakyat.
When the ordinary rakyat doesn’t elect good people during the elections and instead chooses to elect corrupt, uneducated, incompetent politicians during the election, the politicians choose civil servants of a similar mindset to run the administration of the country.
When the corrupt and incompetent civil servants run the country, a country can’t develop socially or economically.
In every constituency, there are always many good and honest people who contest the elections, but they rarely get elected as the people don’t vote for them.
Some people take the plea that there are no good parties or candidates in elections.
The ordinary rakyat need to understand that they alone, are responsible for the state the country is in right now because they have been voting for only such people in elections.
If the ordinary rakyat simply refuses to vote for parties that are spreading communal or religious hatred, spend tons of illegal money during elections and field corrupt and communal people in the election, such parties will be out of business in the near future.
Then the good people would start joining politics, and good parties will flourish, and they will get good politicians.
Such politicians will post only the best civil servants for the top jobs, who will provide the ordinary rakyat with an honest and efficient government.
The ordinary rakyat may blame politicians or civil servants for failing them, but they can’t run away from their own responsibilities of electing the wrong people in power.
Hence, if corruption is not eradicated in our society, the blame lies entirely on the ordinary rakyat of this country.
The ordinary rakyat themselves are a big part of this entire corrupt system in this country.
If the ordinary rakyat refused to understand that it is their responsibility and they were wrong all this while and, accept it and then work towards its improvement, there is no hope of eliminating corruption in the country.
We have a tendency to blame others for everything without reflecting on what we ourselves are doing - how we are passive/indirect promoters of corruption.
The answer is the attitude of the ordinary rakyat needs to change.
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