PUTRAJAYA, Oct 28 — Malaysians need to stop putting a price on their votes if they hope to see any progress in tackling corruption in the country, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed said today.

The senior leader said that corruption is only getting worse in the country by his estimation, but argued that it is because it starts from the ballot box where voters are willing to throw their support behind the highest bidder.

“I have had experience winning an election, losing an election and winning uncontested. The most unhappy moment for the people in my constituency was when I won uncontested, because there was then no money to buy them nasi lemak and cigarettes.

“That was because it was a done deal. If there is a contest, the candidates of course would be willing to fork out money to gain support,” he said when delivering his keynote address at the Perdana Discourse Series 17 here.

Dr Mahathir, who served as prime minister for 22 years until his retirement in 2003, lamented that corruption became rampant in successive general elections post independence, when voters started questioning what they could gain from casting their ballots.

He said that Malaya’s independence from British rule in 1957 was a direct result of “an election with no corruption” two years earlier when the people voted purely on the desire to achieve self-rule and not for personal benefit.

“Since then, we’ve seen election after election, and people began asking what they would get personally. They no longer looked at national progress but instead for their own benefit.

“Selling votes becomes a culture, and it is no longer about the country’s progress. When it gets to that stage, corruption is general and rampant.

“Now, the question they ask is, what do I get for casting my vote? Once you ask that, the national objective is lost,” he said, while speaking on the topic of “Current Political Trends and Their Impact on the Economic and Social Direction of Malaysia”.

Dr Mahathir, who is credited with spearheading Malaysia’s industrialisation and expediting big ticket development projects, said the same mindset weighs down the civil service where everyone from ministers to junior officers expect gratification for work they are supposed to do in the first place.

He however disagreed with expanding on punitive action against those found guilty of corruption, saying that it would make more sense to fix structural issues that allow civil servants to indulge in corrupt practices.

Revisiting the time when he became prime minister in 1981, Dr Mahathir said his administration managed to weed out a lot of corruption simply by setting a three-month time limit for project approval by government departments, failing which they would have to give valid reasons for delays in approval.

“This can be corrected, but not by punishing people. Yes, you must punish those found guilty, but we must also make sure that all government projects are implemented according to procedures and within the shortest time frame as possible.

“The old habit of delayed approval is still around. As long as you allow an unlimited time to do the work, obviously they will be offered some payment for the services they are providing,” he said, referring to bribes to speed up project approval.