The Politics of Corruption and the Corruption of Politics
By Masterwordsmith
Will Malaysia be a land flowing with milk and honey sans corruption if and when UMNO passes the PM's amendments to the party's constitution which are part of its efforts to transform UMNO? If these are passed, can UMNO and BN gain mileage and if it does, will it spell the end of Pakatan Rakyat or are these mere foolish dreams that only bewitch, beguile and bewilder many that they may remain blind to reality?
At the point of typing this post, UMNO delegates at the Dewan Merdeka in the Putra World Trade Centre for the party's annual general assembly, an event which will determine its direction in future.
According to The Star:
They are now waiting to be addressed by party president Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who is also the Prime Minister and proposed amendments to the party's constitution, which are part of the leadership's efforts to transform Umno.The proposed amendments are due to be debated at a special assembly sitting that will be convened after the opening of the general assembly and involves seven motions, including one to increase the voting base to elect leaders to the division level, whereby 146,500 members will be eligible to vote as compared to only 2,510 people now.
The Edge reported yesterday:
“The amendments could abolish money politics because the numbers that can vote will be too huge to be influenced by anyone. Even if there is an attempt to do so, it would be easily detected,” said the prime minister, adding that the huge numbers would make detection easy.
To have a bird's eye-view of the issue, it is worthwhile to define parameters for this post. Firstly, corruption is, in its simplest terms, the abuse of power, most often for personal gain or for the benefit of a group to which one owes allegiance. This act of deceit can be motivated by greed either of one, a few or many, by the desire to retain or increase one’s power, or, perversely idealistic enough, by the ludicrous justification that it is done for a supposed greater good.
Click HERE for a more detailed definition from WIKIPEDIA.
Commonly, the layman may confine such acts to politicians or civil servants in that they think of it in terms of abuse of public power found in virtually every sphere of life. Basically, most know and understand the insidious nature of corruption but the main problem is that different people see it differently.
From a sociological viewpoint, corruption has been around, in one form or another, from the earliest days of social organization. However, we must realize that with development, information about corrupt practices is easily available if and when governments are unable to conceal evidence of wrong-doing due to whistle-blowers such as in the case of the Watergate scandal. Besides, we have to acknowledge that the level of public tolerance for corruption has declined due to various social changes.
At the same time, current trends both in the net and MSM provide less fertile ground in which corruption can flourish as the vox populi are ever ready to lambaste such acts. Corruption, however, bears down most heavily upon the poorest sections of society who must ultimately bear the cost of the distortions and deprivations it produces.
Read more at: THE POLITICS OF CORRUPTION AND THE CORRUPTION OF POLITICS
