Cambodia is a sweet, slow moving country about ten years behind Vietnam. It still lives, however, in the shadow of its past Khmer Rouge in several senses. First and most prominent to me is that it has an over reliance on foreign funding. Many developed countries applaud the UNTAC agreement as helping to establish some level of governance in the country, but the reality is it did what it could, then wiping its hands clean in the interim period, post conflict and pre Cambodian self rule.

The Cambodia People’s Party has almost absolute power in the country, giving the strongest opposition party Sam Rainsy Party a hard time. The foreign community has poured tens of thousands of dollars into the local community, through international NGOs and partner NGOs within the country. They work closely on a number of core issues, mainly on human rights, advovacy and capacity building on development, youth, education, and so on. This has created a sort of buffer effect for the Government. Whenever a particular issue emerges, the international community acts as an in between for the Government and local NGOs. Donor aid is lucrative and so good relationships have to be maintained between them.

It is the strength of the CPP party that bulldozes its way through, perpetuating corruption within Government and not having to answer for any of its mismanagement practices. They are still very popular amongst the rural folk, because they never fail to promise greater development to their local communities. They also invoke the past - bringing up their ability to correct the mistakes of the Khmer Rouge regime - to instill fear amongst the people (forgetting that many of the leaders within Government were themselves party to the violence instated). Note: The Khmer Rouge Tribunal is taking place right now, although money from the Cambodian Government is running out.

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During the Minda Muda Launch in KL a week or so ago, I was asked by a member of the audience whether there were any other countries that we could compare Malaysia with. I said yes, South Africa is the closest one could think of. Indeed, a friend is doing his PhD in comparative economic analysis between the two countries.

How similar, though, the two countries were, I wasn’t sure until an enlightening conversation today.

We compared the political and economic systems of the two, and agreed that both were living under a time bomb that if not addressed immediately, would implode soon, scarring the country and its occupants permanently.

Ironically enough, South Africa was duly impressed by the affirmative action policy in Malaysia, so much so that it adopted it wholesale in 1994, giving a twenty year period for its implementation. Back then, the freedom fighters released the country from its repressive apartheid system, oppressing the black community. Today, preferential policies are given to the advantage of the blacks over the whites in almost all spheres of public life. This is an exact replica of what we have in Malaysia.

Affirmative action policies come in the form of: Requirements for the blacks at managerial, employment and shareholders’ levels, where 25% of shareholdings should come from blacks, 40% of employment. Procurement should also be given to black service providers, such that many white companies conveniently promoted their black sweepers to become CEOs immediately, but merely as puppet leaders since they have little decision-making abilities.

Just like Malaysia, economic power is concentrated on a small number of black families. Where banking rules require 25% of the shares to be owned by blacks, 16% of this has already been sold off to a group of 5 rich black businessmen, who own 90% of this wealth (the remaining 10% is distributed equitably, but this means only 1.6% of the banking wealth is benefiting 250,000 blacks). The other 9% yet to be sold off is being bidded by a team of 3 very rich black guys as well.

The principle is that whilst a percentage of corporate equity is intended to be distributed to the marginalised community in a country, it should be done such that all members would benefit. Instead, affirmative action policies merely transfer wealth from one elite community to another. The same has taken place here.

They were wise in installing a time factor to their policy, but the bad thing was: They achieved in 10 years what they were to have in 20. The argument is therefore that the policy should stop right now. The same can be said of Malaysia, but worse - it was supposed to have ended in 1991, but it is now 2008 and it does not look like anything will change under a Barisan Nasional government.

Policies aside, their political leaders have equally scary similarities as well. Thabo Mbeki has been losing his popularity because positions himself as a highflying intellectual, cream of the crop from London, surrounding himself with a team of Londoners. Zuma on the other hand emerged from the ranks of the people, considered a left wing peoples representative, close to labour unions and the social democrats. Within the party support is growing for Zuma, and many suspect next years’ national Elections will mirror closely what happened in Malaysia this year.

Mbeki’s government is in utter denial of the real situation in South Africa. My conversant quipped, “Mbeki claims nobody has died of AIDS, and technically he is correct!” (People do not die of AIDS itself, of course - it is an influenza attack that kills you off, after the HIV virus has so weakened your immunity system. They are under an illusion that there is no crime in the country - when in reality, people live daily with thick walls, high gates, security guards, alarm systems, and rapid response teams. The Foreign Affairs Minister is camping in China, when in reality the situation in Zimbabwe needs dealing with urgently instead. This is reminiscent of BN that was unable to deal with the public’s sentiments before March 8th 2008. (things are supposed to have theoretically changed…. but…)

Drawing parallels, responses have varied significantly, some people blaming implementation of the policy instead of the policy itself. I emphasise that the policy itself is at fault. Attaching race to any affirmative action policy is suicide for any country, because it lays the ground and provides great room for wastage, abuse and corruption - based on its very technical definition. Better it would be for needs to be considered the qualifying factor.

Shame on Malaysia for preaching this suicidal policy to South Africa. Woe betide any other country that is even considering “learning” from us. Whilst there are certainly short term gains for the marginalised community, its long term liabilities will be destructive, and I caution against it wholeheartedly.

One of the civil society initiatives at the UNCAC is to have an ongoing live feed of discussions, statements and stands made. So the website is here, if you want to check out the exciting stuff emerging out of here.

Lots of talk on ensuring that whistleblowers receive protection when they report on corruption. If we remember, our Minister in the PM’s Department accidentally blurted out that we have a Whistleblowers Protection Act but unfortunately we do not. In the main plenary session, we were all asked to stand for a minute’s silence in remembrance of all those who have been wrongfully imprisoned, tortured and arrested for exposing corruption (public or private).

The CPPS (where I work) is part of the Coation of Civil Society Friends to the UNCAC and it’s great to be here in Bali where the UN Convention against Corruption is taking place this week. (Bali seems to be the favourite for international meetings, after having completed the recent UN Forum on Climate Change in December 2007)

This is the 2nd Conference of the States Parties to the UNCAC, the first one having been in Jordan last year. The UNCAC has been signed by 140 countries and Malaysia is one of them, but unfortunately we have not yet ratified the convention. This is unfortunate but as I understand it we are on the way towards ratifying, subject to an amendment of one small part of our Act and then agreement by the Cabinet. This would be a an Excellent step, because we’d lead the way in ASEAN. Ratifying it means we need to comply with all the requirements of the Convention.

This includes, very importantly, the need to include civil society (Article 13) in the decision-making processes and have proper consultations with them. The trend in the conference here is the need for a review mechanism, so that all countries having ratified the convention should be monitored to check that they are complying with the requirements.

If you don’t review your activities, how can others know you are sticking by the rules? (basically)

It’s exciting to see the dynamic exchange of views over here, and to understand how exactly international decisions are made at these high-level meetings. The positions taken by different countries, regions and blocks. The persuasive skills of some over the other, the role civil society plays (we are here as observers and to gauge the readiness of countries in agreeing to move the UNCAC forward).

Will be writing a full report on this soon - for work lah. Will see how to support existing work on anti-corruption in Malaysia, and to complement it through other work. Of course at the end of the day it is a political issue but we are attempting to tackle it from a technical framework, as follows:

C = M + D - A (equation from Professor Klitgaard, who gave a lecture here)

Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion - Accountability

Corruption tends to flourish “where officials have a monopoly power over a good or service, unlimited discretion in deciding who gets that good or service or how much they get, and there is no accountability whereby others can see what that person is deciding.”

Improving the positive incentives for municipal officials, including reforming civil service salary structures to make them competitive with their counterparts in the private sector; promoting competition in the public and private sectors, which would include privatisation, contracting out and, where necessary, the elimination of corrupt municipal programmes; simplifying rules and regulations and informing citizens of their rights and the service standards to which they are entitled; enhancing accountability and transparency through clear standards of conduct, openness in bidding and contracting, and institutional reforms.

Get in touch with me if you wanna know more about these very technical, practical ways of combating corruption!

If anyone didn’t catch the edition of The Economist with the special report on Religion and Public Life, go look for it. It’s an excellent report on how the world is not going the “secularist” way as was previously thought. In fact, religion is playing a much more important role both from the ground up and top down.

See the US Presidential Elections, for example. Bush is riding on the Republican Christian/Bible Belt Protestant faith, he who prays everyday but does not see that this defies his logic of lying about WMD (weapons of mass destruction, in this case weapons of mass destruction). Mike Huckabee is a staunch Protestant Christian. Romny has recently gotten a lot of flak for his Mormon belief, where traditional Christians would not stand for a representative believing in what they consider a cult.

It goes without saying that one’s religion continues to play an important role in Islamic countries. In South Korea, many of its elected leaders are staunch Christians. There are also extremist groups from Hinduism and Buddhism sprouting out around. Bhutan for example will not allow any non-Buddhists to work in Government.

Religion is not fast fading but instead taking root and being used as political tools. This I disagree with. Although I previously stated that religion can be a guiding principle for governance, using it for political mileage is just hogwash.

Which is why, at the recent forum I conducted, many Muslims said that the only way to present an alternative way of looking at religion is to say we are “Saving the Religion from the State”.

What impressed me most during my recent Young Leaders’ Program trip to Australia in early December 2007 – sponsored by the Australia-Malaysia Institute under Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – was the briefing by the Ombudsman representing New South Wales. The Ombudsman, a Swedish word originating since 1809, meaning “defender of the people”, is a person empowered to ensure fairness and justice in society. The role of the Ombudsman’s office is therefore to investigate and resolve cases, and hence make recommendations for improvement. Many countries around the world have begun adopting a similar mechanism for ensuring accountability of public offices, and Malaysia should be well on its way to establishing such an outfit, as calls for transparency and good governance are escalating.   Read the rest of this entry »