By Tunku Aziz
Mysinchew.com

As the prime minister begins the process of winding down his stewardship of this country that he inherited from his now much despised predecessor, he would have been less than human if he did not reflect upon the highlights and the low points of his stewardship that in turn cheered and depressed him.

He must wonder why, after such a promising start, fate should have intervened to deal him such a cruel hand. The humiliation of being forced to get on the bicycle and ride off alone into the political sunset prematurely has been, he must admit, largely self-inflicted.

He must sometimes wonder why he was so incredibly naïve as to swallow the proverbial hook, line and sinker, the assurances and protestations of complete and undying loyalty so glibly and convincingly uttered by his closest associates.

I personally would not myself touch them with a long barge pole, but then I suppose I am of a suspicious nature.

When Abdullah Badawi took over the reigns of government, I was among those invited by the media to comment on what his legacy might be. We were swept and overwhelmed by the euphoria of the moment, the dawn of a blessed new era and the end of a morally degrading and debilitating regime.

Anyone after Mahathir Mohamad was a welcome change, and the country was happy to give him and the party he led the biggest ever electoral victory in the history of our country.

Abdullah responded by urging us, his countrymen and women to “work with me and not for me.”

This catchphrase symbolising inclusiveness went down well in the beginning, but when people began to see through this as another clever spin-doctoring exercise, it went down like a ton of bricks.

Abdullah was suave. He could at times be glibly persuasive especially when outlining his agenda against corruption.

As president of Transparency International Malaysia, I was literally “over the moon.” I was, like millions of other Malaysians, completely taken in by all this rhetoric and mock determination to slay the dragon.

Corruption, since his tenure of office, has continued to savage the integrity of this country and much else.

True, he has put in place all the visible symbolic institutions associated with fighting corruption, but sadly they remain nothing more than just weak, ineffectual structures constructed on shifting sand with sub-standard materials.

We do not have to look farther than the Malaysian Institute of Integrity and the recently morphed Anti-Corruption Agency to realise the futility of it all.

Brick and mortar alone cannot sustain our war against national corruption. Abdullah knew that but given the culture of political corruption in his United Malay National Organisation, what could the poor man have done?

My comment in 2003 to the media response on Abdullah was that he would leave an important legacy if he was satisfied with one term during which time he could bring about such changes as were clearly necessary to make a difference to Malaysia in social, economic and political terms.

All he had to do to come out smelling like a million roses was to do the opposite of what Mahathir did during his 22 years of ethically and morally very questionable governance.

As a one term prime minister, Abdullah would not have to be looking over his shoulder constantly. He did try in his usual perfunctory manner to do something, but as many of us have come to realise, it was a case of too little, too late.

I hope history will not be too harsh when evaluating his premiership because he did try after all. He will certainly be remembered as a decent human being which I suppose is more than can be said of many of us.

He will be leaving behind a bloated and lumbering civil service that has been seriously politicised, abandoning any pretence at “neutrality” in discharging its duties and responsibilities, and a police force that lurches from one crisis of confidence to another with regular monotony.

If press reports are to be believed, a major police brutality scandal has already surfaced, and this, in addition to other reported cases of death in custody must surely merit some serious thinking on the part of the authorities about policing in a democratic society.

The manner in which police detainee A. Kugan met his death while under the care and protection of the Royal Malaysia Police has shaken public confidence in our police as never before.

There are no bad policemen, only bad officers and the Inspector General of Police may wish to do the honourable thing; take responsibility and resign.

It is in situations such as this that those of us concerned with effective and ethical policing wonder why the most important of the 125 recommendations of the Royal Commission inquiring into the police service, namely an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission has yet to be set up four years on.

Has the government the political will to implement this vital recommendation immediately?

The police I know object to this, but it is the people, through their government, who should be wagging the tail, not the other way round.

The IPCMC is intended to protect the people against unethical policing as well as to protect the police against themselves.