Over the past few days, the mainstream media has been awash with news of the numerous ‘new faces’ Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties are fielding in the coming general elections.

There is much praise over how ‘clean’, ‘honest’ and ‘hard-working’ these candidates are. But aren’t they supposed to be clean, honest and hard-working to run for public office in the first place? Aided and abetted by the media, the BN is ‘selling’ the idea that they represent good government. Yet the facts consistently speak otherwise.

The Umno-led BN government is plagued with embarrassing public interest issues such as the Lingam tape scandal, the multi-billion ringgit Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal, outrage over Zakaria Mat Deros’s palatial mansion in Klang, Health Minister Chua Soi Lek’s video sex scandal, and the Altantuya murder trial which alludes to political involvement.

Then, there is the Bersih march for free and fair elections, the demolishment of Hindu temples and marginalisation of Indians so brutally put down by heavily-armed police and chemically-laced water cannons aimed at peace-loving Hindraf supporters.

Massive corruption and nepotism are deep-rooted problems that are ingrained and accepted as normal in BN component parties. They will not go away, no matter how many new candidates the BN fields in any election. This fact was brought home by Selangor Menteri Besar, Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, when speaking of Zakaria’s palatial mansion. He made it clear that corrupt BN politicians and leaders are set to stay when he said:

‘There is nothing prohibiting law-breakers from becoming councilors and the political system allows undesirables to creep in because of the positions they hold in the party’.

Thanks to mounting public disgust, Zakaria has been dropped as the Umno state assembly candidate for Port Klang. But to perpetuate his infamous legacy, he is being replaced by none other than his daughter-in-law, Roslinda Abdul Jamil.

In a media statement issued on June 17, 2002, opposition leader Lim Kit Siang, asked how Ling Hee Leong, the son of former MCA president and transport minister, Ling Liong Sik, could, at the age of 27, and without any track record, have the prowess to embark on over RM1.2 billion in corporate acquisitions in a matter of months completely on his own ‘merit’.

In calling for an Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) investigation, Lim said it should show the whole country in its report how Hee Leong could have catapulted into the billion-ringgit bracket of the corporate stratosphere without the improper political or ministerial influence of his father.

I’m sure all Malaysians, too, wish to know and emulate the secrets of Hee Leong’s success. But that will never happen, considering he has been ‘cleared’ by the ACA of any impropriety and is now standing under the MCA ticket as parliamentary candidate for Gopeng, in Perak.

Then we have the infamous Khairy Jamaluddin, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s son-in-law who consistently makes racist and seditious statements against non-Malays in this country and admittedly gets away with it. Khairy, too, is running as the parliamentary candidate for Rembau in Seremban.

In The Star on Nov 2, last year, Khairy said being the prime minister’s son-in-law has provided him ‘protection’ which he wants to use to change things for the better. The Umno Youth deputy chief said he was able to ‘push the envelope now’ partly because of that relationship with the prime minister.

He was quoted as saying: ‘There’s a certain extent (to which) these people in Umno will not go after me. So it gives me ‘protection’ to change things. ‘If I don’t use this ‘protection’ to change things for the better, then I’m just wasting time and marking my time to go up the ladder of politics. That’s not what I am about.’

So Khairy openly admits to cronyism and political ambition. Nothing is going to stop him from becoming a prime minister in the future. But in sedate Malaysia, where Internet penetration is only about 10 percent and the media glorifies the BN government without fail each day, there is little that can be done to rid the country of the national nuisance that Abdullah’s son-in-law has made himself to be.

The BN says all its candidates have to be cleared by the ACA before being given a seat to contest in the elections. Yet, the ACA - the very body tasked with investigating corruption - has itself been alleged during the royal commission of inquiry into the Lingam tape of ‘awarding’ RM3,000 to Lingam’s secretary, G. Jayanti. What the money was for has not been established.

So, shouldn’t the ACA itself need to be investigated? And by whom? The 20 years of Dr Mahathir Mohamad's premiership was an era that presided over the destruction of every check and balance this country ever had.

So what now? What choice do Malaysians have of ever retaining some semblance of respectability, decency and honesty in our system of government? There is only one way – vote in the opposition en masse not just to break the BN’s two-thirds majority, but to run the government. Let’s see a change. Remember, a vote for BN is a vote for corruption, nepotism and bad government.