LETTER | According to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said, the five Bersatu MPs declaring their support for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in exchange for development funds could not be considered a form of corruption.

Her reason is that it can only be considered bribery if Anwar had made such an offer in a bid to become the prime minister.

But since Anwar is already enjoying the support of 149 MPs and did not require the additional support of the five MPs, according to Azalina, what the five Bersatu MPs did is not corruption.

I don’t know about you, but I find this definition to be bewildering and self-serving.

Going by Azalina’s definition, if the government leader and the opposition leader did the same thing – which is to promise MPs on the other side of the aisle to switch their support to their side in return for receiving favours - only the opposition leader will be guilty of corruption because only the opposition leader wants to become the prime minister.

The leader of the government cannot be considered guilty of corruption, although he does the same thing that the leader of the opposition does, simply because he is already the prime minister.

Going by Azalina’s definition, corruption is not defined by the act itself, but by the needs of those who participate in it. What this means is that if the five opposition MPs switched their support when Anwar only had the support of 107 MPs, then it is corruption, because Anwar needs their support to become PM.

But since Anwar already has 149 MPs backing him and he doesn’t need the five MPs' support, the five opposition MPs doing the same thing will no longer be considered as corruption.

Going by this definition, I reckon the rich and the powerful are never corrupt. It’s only the poor and the helpless that can be guilty of corruption.

If you give RM100 to the office peon to subvert the office’s rules and the regulations, that is corruption, because the office peon, obviously took the money you gave him out of need.

If you give a million ringgit to the head of the office to subvert the rules and the regulations however, this is not corruption, because the head of the office already has a million ringgit in his bank account, so he doesn't need your million ringgit. Your million ringgit to them can thus just be considered a donation or a gift.

What kind of definition is this?

This “corruption is defined by the needs of the receiver, not the act itself” theory that Azalina advocates, sounds eerily similar to the theory that Najib Abdul Razak applied when he took a few hundred million from a Saudi prince when he was in office.

Since Najib also claimed that he did not need the money or used the money on himself, he thought there was nothing wrong with him taking the money either.

Listening to Azalina and thinking of Najib made me wonder whether all politicians interpret terms like corruption or nepotism the same way.

Similarity in argument

Other than their self-serving definition of corruption, Anwar also gave a similar defence when he was accused of nepotism after hiring his daughter for a high government post not too long ago.

According to Anwar, using his powers to appoint his daughter to a high position in the government, although she does not have the experience or the qualification to take on that job, and although her appointment by-passes many more qualified and experienced candidates, is not nepotism because his daughter is not taking any salary in her position.

Note the similarity in argument between Azalina, Najib, and Anwar here. They all seem to believe that corruption is not something that is defined by the act but by the self-assessment of those who participate in the act.

According to their point of view, it doesn’t matter if a Saudi prince gives you hundreds of millions of ringgit for no reason, or that five opposition MPs bizarrely decide to support the government leader while remaining in the opposition fold or if you get selected to a highly prestigious job without having any necessary experience or qualification, the act itself doesn’t make it corrupt.

It is only corrupt if you feel that you have gained something from it. If you don’t think that you have gained something from it, even if the act itself is indicating as clear as daylight that you did gain something from it, then it's not corrupt.

Your self-assessment of your gains versus your needs, in other words, is the final arbiter of whether you are corrupt or not.

Does everybody in the country think like this, or is this just a belief that is peculiar to the politicians?

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.