Corruption (35%) is UMNO’s worst flaw? Racist (10%) as 6th flaw ?

No lah, Merdeka Center for Opinion Research itself is obviously “flawed” in failing to differentiate between pernicious corruption from that of a vigorous pursuit of patronage policies, sanctified by Federal Constitution, justified by historical “Social Contract”, meant to correct historical economic imbalance between the haves and haves not, the urban denizens and rural agragian toilers. People should differentiate that correcting historical economic imbalance is social justice – not racism!

“Out of Touch” (15%) and “Weak Leaders” (12%) as 2nd and 3rd flaws?

No lah. We see a recent return of an ex leader and strongman on political sideline who ebulliently just told a 1000 strong gathering that majority have been turned into minority and insulted by minorities, thereby articulating fearlessly the sentiments on the ground. If there were any weak leader, he is on the way out in a matter of days….

“Weak managers of the economy” (11%)? This is nonsense. Though not entirely spared from effects of global economic crisis, we’re comparatively better off than our neighbours especially that little red dot south against whom we’re often compared in unfavourable terms. Has anyone heard Khazanah lost money the way Temasek did when its assets deflated by some S$58 billion when even her PM’s wife helming it had to resign? In terms of FDI, MIDA has convinced executives of US corporations to stay or even relocate here from China. The world may have a banking crisis or break in credit cycle but not us : our monetary/fiscal management is excellent; we don’t have a fold up by a major investment bank like Leyman Bros; our Malayan Banking is not like Citibank, indeed it could afford to acquire PT Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) for over RM8 billion and our banks generally are flushed with liquidity and deposits – especially when our leaders have the forsight to have the government fully guarantee all ringgit and foreign currency deposits with commercial, Islamic and investment banks — either local or foreign — until December 2010 – whilst having manageable Non performing loans and no Sub Prime problems. One just have to verify with one’s own eyes the number of people in our shopping complexes and eateries to know that we’re keeping up with consumption demand, which will be given further impetus into the economic stratosphere by the RM60 billion stimulus package, almost 9 per cent of the GDP.

“Arrogance” (11%) as 5th flaw? Maybe a little of honest arrogance based on achievements above adumbrated uis admitted. Nothing wrong with this to take pride in honest achievement, which proves a measuring cast from those extolling hypocritical humility!

To sum: unbeknownst to the common man, an opinion poll like that taken by Merdeka Center for Opinion Research is fundamentally flawed. And we’re not only talking about uninformed or misinformed sampling of opinions canvassed: we’re talking about a confusion and mix up of wrong benchmarks used!