A new survey by Universiti Malaya’s Centre for Democracy and Elections (Umcedel) reveals that a vast majority of Malays in the country still want the term ‘Allah’ to be exclusive to Muslims.

An overwhelming 77 percent of the Malay respondents to the poll said the term should belong only to Muslims, and the same number of Malay respondents also said the term should not be used by Christians in Sabah and Sarawak either.

Only 11 percent of Malays agree to the non-exclusivity of 'Allah', while 12 percent are uncertain.

“It is obvious that the issue is still sensitive to the Malays, so political parties must be careful,” Umcedel director Redzuan Othman said today.

The survey was conducted between Dec 6 and 8 among 1,676 respondents who were interviewed face-to-face.

Meanwhile a lower percentage - 58 percent - of respondents from all ethnic groups said the term ‘Allah’ belongs exclusively to Muslims, Redzuan said ( see chart ).

The survey also revealed that an overwhelming number of Malaysians still believe that there is corruption in the government of the day.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents believed this notion about corruption, with 79 percent of Malays and 80 percent of the Chinese believing that corruption is a widespread problem in the country.

Redzuan noted that this must also be given close attention by the government.

In what it described as its most extensive survey to date, Umcedel conducted it with 83 enumerators and four supervisors in all states across Peninsular Malaysia.

The survey was fully funded by Universiti Malaya, and the researchers used the national voter composition in the states in order to randomly sample respondents accordingly.

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