It has been reported that the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer survey found that only 45% of Malaysians trusted the government, down from last year’s 54%.

Malaysians’ trust in Putrajaya would have plunged far below 45% into the region of the thirties if the survey had been conducted in the new year of 2015, and not between November 13 and November 24 last year.

If the Trust Survey had been conducted in the new year, it would have to take into account public’s further deteriortion in their trust perceptions on Putrajaya as a result of the following five events:

1. The worst floods catastrophe in living memory in Malaysia and the Federal government’s appalling state of unpreparedness in all three phases of response, relief and reconstruction to the floods disaster, to the extent that there were flood victims who were completely left without food, water or power for days on end. The Federal Government failed and it was the ordinary citizens, whether as individuals, groups or NGOs, who saved the day by organising themselves to rush help and relief to the flood victims.

2. The grave breach of trust in the failure of the Federal Government to provide a definitive solution to the 40-year nightmare of the illegal immigrant problems in Sabah, which has changed the political demography of the state and reduced native Sabahans into strangers in their own land, despite the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS).

3. The deplorable Zahid-Phua-Shafee-Khalid quadruple tangle, with Malaysia reduced to a laughing stock in the world by the sorry episode of the Home Minister writing an infamous letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to vouch for the character of an alleged gambling kingpin, contradicting his own police account, and the maze of lies and falsehoods tying up the Home Minister in trying to deny the undeniable and defend the indefensible.

4. The humongous denial complex of Putrajaya, best exemplified by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s declaration yesterday that Malaysia is not facing any economic crisis, which was quickly followed by the announcement by the credit ratings agency Fitch that it may downgrade Malaysia’s rating as it viewed Najib’s revised 2015 Budget and the government’s revision of its fiscal deficit to 3.2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) as evidence that “dependence on commodities remains a key credit weakness for Malasia”.

5. The Open Letter by 25 Eminent Malays with snowballing support from all strata of Malaysian society, regardless of race, religion, region or politics, whether NGOs or NGIs, and most recently and significantly, the grave sentiments of the Yang di Pertuan Agong, Kedah Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah, that he had never been more concerned about race and religious relations in the country since ascending to the throne 57 years ago in 195

It is most pathetic about the state of governance in Malaysia that at this time of the people’s lowest trust in Federal Government in the nation’s history, the Prime Minister has himself little trust of the Cabinet and Parliament which was probably why his revised 2015 Budget was never brought to Cabinet for approval and it never occurred to the Prime Minister to convene an emergency meeting of Parliament, which was the body which had approved the 2015 Budget in the first place.

Did the Cabinet at its meeting today discuss the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer survey that only 45% of Malaysians trusted the government, down from last year’s 54%?