The government has a credibility problem and this explains the cynicism among many Malaysians toward the newly formed Human Rights Commission, said commission chairman Musa Hitam.

"I get the impression that the government seems to have a credibility problem overall. I'm not specifically talking about human rights," said Musa in an exclusive interview with malaysiakini .

Musa added that "everything that is being done by the government is being viewed with cynicism and skepticism".

"So when a commission of this nature is set up, everybody would tell you, 'Oh, they are so bad. How can they even try to be good?'" he lamented.

Musa, who is former deputy prime minister, was responding to a malaysiakini [#1]poll[/#] on the Human Rights Commission where over 65 percent of 3,329 readers said that they either have little or no confidence, and another 27 percent espoused a wait-and-see attitude.

He said that he agreed with the minority in the poll who opted for a "wait and see" stance.

"Judge us by the way we behave," Musa said. "I hope that there will be reasonable satisfaction of our performance."

The newly-minted commission head told malaysiakini that he was not disappointed that his position did not come with a ministerial status.

"I think the job is more serious than the status of it. Status is what one makes of himself, not what others think," he said.

In the two-hour interview at his house in Bukit Tunku, Kuala Lumpur, last Saturday, Musa also refuted criticisms of the commission over the choice of its members, how he intended to deal with the police force and the problems afflicting Umno and his expectations in next week's Umno party polls.

The first of a four-part series on the Musa interview begins today.