KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 ― Malaysians have selected the word “bitter” to define a particularly challenging year for the nation, an annual poll of Mandarin characters by the Han Culture Centre Malaysia has revealed.

In this year’s poll, 16 per cent of 13,889 respondents voted for the Mandarin character, “苦”, or “bitter” out of 10 available words to define 2015.

Finance-related terms followed closely in terms of popularity, with the words “贪”(corrupt), “税” (tax), “捐” (donation) garnering 15 per cent, 14.1 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.

The other words in this year’s poll are “乱”(chaos), “跌”(drop), “耻”(shame), “霾” (haze), “一” (one), “震” (quake), which were voted by 9.5 per cent, 9.1 per cent, 8.8 per cent, 8.1 per cent, 4.6 per cent and 4.4 per cent of the respondents.

According to a report by local news portal Oriental Daily, the poll’s respondents were mostly from the youngest age group of 16 to 30 years old (55 per cent), while those aged 31 to 45 years accounted for 25 per cent, and those in age groups 46 to 60 years and above 60 years accounted for 14 and 6 per cent respectively.

The poll involved Malaysians who reside both here and abroad.

Of the poll’s local participants, most were from Selangor (22.3 per cent) while the others were from Johor (19.8 per cent), Kuala Lumpur (15.3 per cent) and Sarawak (12.4 per cent), Perak (6.9 per cent) and Penang (6.7 per cent).

The favoured choice of voting this year was through text messages (56.4 per cent), with 33.1 per cent and 10.5 per cent using online voting and physical ballots.

The word “航” (aviation) was selected to define last year where Malaysia was struck with two aviation tragedies, while past polls showed the words “涨” (rise), “改”(change), “转” (turn) were picked for the preceding years of 2013, 2012 and 2011.

Malaysians this year have had to grapple with rising living costs compounded by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) introduced in April and hikes in highway toll rates, as well as the weakening of the ringgit, which fell past the now-removed peg of 3.80 against the US dollar to a record low of RM4.457 on September 29.

Against this backdrop, Putrajaya has also been put under the spotlight both locally and globally over a number of political and financial controversies. Most notable among these is the 1Malaysia Development Berhad saga and the RM2.6 billion donation made to the accounts of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak that local graftbusters are still investigating.