Malaysia, like a truant student, repeatedly scores badly in corruption perception indices.
We shouldn't be surprised when some of our politicians want us to believe that what we consider corruption is really charity.
How low can we go? Very low, it seems. Let's not go away thinking that it is just the practice of a particular stripe of politicians. Others have been known to be similarly "charitable". Only that they have not named it so.
To these politicians, bribery pays so long as they are not caught. Many have got away for the longest time. Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) itself acknowledges that this doesn't happen just in general and state elections, but in party elections, too. It has been the culture of many monied politicians.
Graft busters are calling for laws to be enacted to banish bribery. One such law is the one on political financing. Such laws are not without downsides. But first, what is the political financing law? Simply put, it's a piece of legislation that regulates how political parties are funded and how the funds get used.
Experts say such a law is important because it will make the flow of funds transparent. Any misappropriation, these promoters argue, would be made visible for enforcers to take action. Cynics will ask — and they are not wrong to pose such a question — isn't this tantamount to legislating corruption into law? Donors, usually, corporate titans, fund political parties to further their business interests. No selflessness here.
It happens now without the law and it will happen even after the law gets passed, if ever. We are with the advocates of such a law on one point, though. A political financing law, if it is well drafted, can tame Malaysia's corruption chaos among political parties. Some law is always better than no law at all. This is something we concede.
There is a better way to political financing: public funding. Many countries, mostly corruption perception chart toppers like Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria, provide cash grants for party activities or campaigns. In this way, corporate donors and foreign political influencers are kept from promoting their interests.
Admittedly, like the political financing law, public funding demands effective policing. But unlike private money, public funds are good money.
But political parties can only be a positive force if their leaders are forces for good. Laws can't compel them to be so. Ethics can.
After all, corruption is unethical behaviour. Ethics have its seat in the human heart. Taint this spiritual flesh, and you taint your worldview, a most dangerous thing to do. Do not get us wrong. Our case isn't an argument against anti-graft laws. No, not at all. They have a place to punish those who are errant. But this is post hoc. Our justification is this: ethics reach where the law can't. We admit, though, that this is a hard slog.
And it must start early, for the child is the father of man, to borrow the words of William Wordsworth. A personality gets built then. Miss that then we are unfairly asking laws to do what ethics must have done.
Party leaders, who themselves must be spotless, must ensure that their members enter politics untainted. Why enter politics? There is a right answer and a wrong answer. The right answer is: to serve the people, meant in all sincerity. Everything else is the wrong answer.