Never in the course of our nation's history has corruption been as rampant as it is today. And never has the country been as racially polarised in peace time as it is today. These two scourges are now so intertwined, thanks to the fine art of BN political opportunism.

The New Economic Policy (NEP) which was first conceived as an affirmative action of socio-economic engineering has now been perverted into an institutionalised communal political bribery scheme of sorts. It has degenerated into blatant handouts and bailouts to satisfy and feed the patronage machine those props up Putrajaya.

It has come to a point that subliminally to a bumiputera, any challenge against the NEP is now contorted as a challenge to 'Ketuanan Melayu'; whatever those words are supposed to mean. It is a BN creation - to rationalise with a distorted sense of communal tenancy.

And subliminally to the non-bumiputera, the NEP is now viewed as a seemingly never-ending bondage of forced gratitude; almost a ransom for civil order. All in the name of the have-nots, who remain not having much.

When a public policy of such import is twisted through its subjective and almost discretionary powers of distribution, it becomes a fertile vehicle for corruption. One feeds the other, and so the wheel goes on a never-ending cycle. The sense of hopelessness among the ordinary rakyat is pervasive indeed.

The net results are what we see today. From top to bottom, the government machinery and delivery system is fueled by corruption. Unlike Pak Lah, we should not be in denial anymore.

Let's walk to that polling booth to say goodbye to all that. Then and only then will we really feel good.