Pakatan Selangor reps pass ‘integrity test’, but…
By Sun Line
Over the weekend I conducted a survey among 100 of my Facebook friends on corruption perception, with the question: “In your opinion do u think there is corruption among Selangor Pakatan reps?”
The intention was to gauge the perceived level of corruption rather than attempting a weekend-long Royal Commission of Inquiry style data-mining.
Of the 82 replies I got back, 39 were from males, 40 from females and three from profiles of unknown gender.
For the sake of not corrupting the survey with bias answers, no invitation to take part in the survey was sent to a) Selangor reps, b) their staff; and c) known one-eyed Pakatan campaigners. Roughly 1/3 of those invited to participate are known to be generally apolitical.
Those who replied were from late teens to pensioners, from university students, to homemakers, to intellectuals, to professionals, to white and blue collars workers.
While I was only expecting a brief ‘yes’, ‘probably’, or ‘no’, 40 of the replies came back with comments explaining their answer.
This unexpected twist gave me a clearer insight into how and why perceptions on this group of politicians were formed.
Thirty-five (42.6%) replied in the affirmative, 42 (51.2%) in the negative and the rest said they were ‘not sure’ or that there probably was.
Of those who said yes, the general consensus was that while corruption is probable (based on how hands need to be greased theory), it certainly is not anywhere in the same league as when the BN was in power.
Those who are in the NO camp truly believe Selangor reps are squeaky clean.
However, five (6.1%) commented that while the reps are clean, some of their staff, a handful of councillors and hangers-on are dodgy and they fear these groups of people will ultimately give the public the perception the reps linked to them are corrupt.
Further correspondence with those who were in the NO camp revealed something startling — some of them believe some of these reps (they emphasised ‘never from Pas’) will likely be involved with graft if they know they have a good chance of getting away with it.
Two replies sum it up best. To paraphrase them, they said while the BN failed the corruption test repeatedly, Umno and its misuse of federal institutions have a silver lining — they have become, even if that’s not their true intention, valuable public watchdogs on corrupt practises and that has kept Pakatan reps on their toes.
This being the case, my conclusion is that since Umno is playing such a ‘vital role’, it is the public’s duty to ensure Umno remains in the Selangor opposition because the Pakatan reps will never have the clout to keep Umno clean should it return to power.
* Note: this survey is just a guide to how a section of the public perceive corruption status in Selangor. It is neither scientific nor pretends to be as accurate as any survey with a much larger sample.
(This Notes may be freely republished on condition “Sun Line’ is accredited as the writer and the content is unedited, and a linkback to this page ( http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=162123969016&ref=mf ) is included.)
