Where have we heard those words before? To stamp out corruption and make this country a better place to live. Indeed from the mouth of Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Now, these exact same words are being uttered by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

I feel with this landslide mandate, reforms by one man against an entire corrupted system is deemed to fail. It will not be "a man who will change the system" but the "system who will change the man".

If you look at the advertising campaign conducted by the Barisan Nasional government, one word is conspicuously missing from their agenda. This word is 'justice' - justice for all Malaysians. Sadly, Malaysians cannot be bothered with justice. What the Malaysian society is particularly interested in is "me, myself, and I".

BN has also taken credit of the country's economic progress. As an intellectual, I believe that most of the country's economic well-being cannot be attributed to the policies of the ruling coalition. As a small and open economy, our destiny is in the hands of developed countries' economies which we export a great deal to. Unfortunately, ordinary Malaysians do not see this and thus have thrown their support to the ruling coalition.

What goes up must come down in time. Just look at Japan, struggling to combat recession and deflation, and the strongest economy in the world, United States, reeling from the effects of a stagnated economic and post-bubble crash.

Do Malaysians think our ruling coalition's economic policies can save us from an inevitable economic cycle? They better think again.