Public trust in Putrajaya down because Malaysian society maturing, Umno Youth man says

(Malay Mail Online) – An Umno panellist at the Edelman Trust Barometer Annual Global Study 2016 suggested today that the dip in public trust towards the government was no anomaly.

The panellist, Umno Youth exco member Shahril Hamdan, blamed this on progress and said it was normal for any maturing society to grow cynical of their leadership, even if their country is doing well.

“As democracy matures, the cynicism level of people toward the government increases. Regardless of how the government communicates or performs, people will put less trust in government and its leaders,” he said today during the panel discussion on the results of the survey.

“As people get more informed, people are more likely less trusting of authority figures, especially when it comes to the government, politicians and business leaders,” he added.

The results released today showed that public trust in the government dipped by 7 percentage points from 46 per cent in the previous 2015 survey to 39 per cent this year among the general population and dropped 11 percentage points to 34 per cent among the informed public.

Shahril also drew parallels between Malaysia and other western countries like the United Kingdom and United States, two nations that value democracy.

“In contrast to countries like Singapore and China, where they don’t value democracy as much as Malaysia, US and UK.

“Look at the US and UK, they (the people) also have a low trust of the government,” he said.

Meanwhile, another panellist, Dr Oh Ei Sun, a Senior Fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore said Putrajaya should improve itself as a technocratic administration to regain the people’s trust.

“If you specifically ask people their trust in politicians you have different answer but government as a whole, people have a different view.

“People look at the government as a service provider. Like at UTC, you can get your passport done in an hour.

“Government must institutionalise this perception that it is a service provider. It should technocrat itself,” he said during the discussion.

Another panellist, Maxis Malaysia Head of Consumer Business Dushyanthan Vathiyanathan for businesses to increase public trust, they should place greater emphasis on engaging with their customers.

“Malaysia is becoming more and more of an informed public. They are interested in knowing what’s happening and not what you tell them.

“You have to be transparent with them and inform them of anything and everything. That’s because now they have information and do their checks,” he said.

On trust towards media, The Malaysian Insider CEO Jahabar Sadiq said Malaysians are now more inclined towards placing their trust in the foreign media instead of local publications.

He also said there was a clear “dissonance” between the news that reaches the public via foreign news sources and the news channeled through mainstream news outlets.

“This year’s data and finding is scary. There is a divergence in levels of trust among general public

“Informed public that trust the media are trusting media outside Malaysia. General public here don’t trust media because they see dissonance in local media outlets,” he said.

All the panellists agreed that trust levels on NGOs here have improved because of the organisations’ seemingly noble causes.

“NGO’s I believe, they are largely inoffensive. They don’t look for money or power because of inoffensive natured brand is easier to sell,” Shahril said.

The Edelman study also showed business “remains the second most trusted of the four institutions in Malaysia and the most trusted to keep pace with changing times” even as it recorded a 2 percentage point drop to 58 per cent this year among the general public compared to 2015.