back to news

Malaysians count on PM, military
By : Heidi Foo and Theresa Tuson
13-Dec-2007, New Srait Times

KUALA LUMPUR: Confidence in the military and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi topped the list in a national survey related to trust in political institutions.

The survey showed that 76.3 per cent of Malaysians believed they could trust the military, followed by the prime minister with 75.8 per cent. A preliminary report was released by the Asia Barometer Survey in collaboration with the Merdeka Centre during a seminar at the International Islamic University Malaysia yesterday. About 1,200 face-to-face interviews were carried out in 14 different languages between July and August this year.

Assistant Prof Dr Bridget Welsh says most Malaysians would not turn to violence

The sample size involved 900 Malaysians aged 18 and above from the peninsula, with 150 each in Sabah and Sarawak respectively.

Among the issues discussed were the Malaysian attitude towards political trust and participation and democracy. It also showed that Malaysians were relatively passive in political participation except for voting in which 72.9 per cent of respondents were registered voters. "The survey suggested that a small number of Malaysians would turn to violence as most would participate in voting," said Johns Hopkins University Southeast Asia Studies Assistant Prof Dr Bridget Welsh, who is also the project director of Asia Barometer Survey. Only one per cent of the respondents attended political protests.

About 70.5 per cent were satisfied with democracy in Malaysia. However, only 16.5 believed that Malaysia has "full democracy". "Even though Malaysians place high trust in the institutions, only 21 per cent believe the government is doing its best. "It is apparent that there is a lot of trust. However, there are areas to be improved especially when dealing with corruption and crime," said Welsh adding that these were some of the main problems in the country. The survey was conducted in 14 countries around Asia, parallel to African, European, Latin America and Middle East barometers. Further research would be compared against results from other countries.