It has been exactly three years since Abdullah Ahmad Badawi took the helm from his ex-boss, Dr Mahathir Mohamad. How did he fare - A, B, C, D, E, F? Here's the verdict from key personalities from civil society groups.

Syed Shahrir Syed Mohamad, Malaysian Trade Union Congress president

No specific grade but generally a 'fail'

For two consecutive years, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi gave bonus to civil servants. However, we have sent him several memorandums on issues affecting the workers. He does not seem to be responding. We want to meet with the prime minister so that we can tell him the problems of workers in this country, in particular on the need for minimum wage.

We have not seen much changes. He spoke of cleaning up corruption, but there are still cases from the 1980s that are yet to be resolved. He made promises of cleaning up the administration and we don't know why he is still holding back.

He has been talking about transparency. Let him be open about it. He should know that the public would always be ready to support any administration that advocates transparency.

The latest development where a member of his own party, (former prime minister) Dr Mahathir Mohamad, has attacked him - it is really damaging that the person who picked him as prime minister has now publicly expressed that he regretted his decision.

Sonia Randhawa, Centre for Independent Journalism director

Grade: E

In terms of creating a more transparent government, he has released certain pieces of information. The AP (car import approved permit) list and the API (air pollutant index) for example, are information that were once secret.

However, there has yet to be an institutionalisation of transparency and accountability. This means that any move that Abdullah makes can be easily undone. A day before the API was released, his deputy (Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak) said it would not be released. Had Najib been in power, the information would remain secret.

The areas we have seen some positive moves in terms of fighting corruption has been largely been the confined at the local government level. We are not seeing the big fish being tackled.

In terms of press freedom, we are actually seeing more blatant abuse. I don't think that it (the World Press Freedom Index which last week ranks Malaysia at 92) is a good indication. I don't think it is accurate to judge media freedom by calculating how many reporters were killed. There are clear boundaries in the local media, such as on religious issues. When the media get too close to the boundaries, there is a clampdown.

Mahathir was the one that put into place an institution that concentrates all the powers to the office of the prime minister. Abdullah has shown he was more than willing to use that power.

S Aruchelvan, Jerit (Coalition of Workers and Unions) coordinator

Grade: D

There has been nothing serious implemented in the last three years. If you look at the all the laws in Mahathir's era, there are no changes to them at all. The UUCA (Universities and University Colleges Act) was used against students, ISA (Internal Security Act) was used. We don't see any liberalisation after Abdullah came into power.

Though we had some hope on the issue of corruption, and the reform of the police force, there has been nothing concrete. The IPCMC (Independent Police Complaint and Misconduct Commission) was not implemented.

And as for the workers, the urban poor, the plantation sector, once again we see no improvement in their lives. The minimum wage was not implemented, and the oil hike and inflation has affected of a lot of people.

The government continues to promote neo-liberal policies such as trying to privatise water, hospitals, and recently ambulance service. Basically, they are selling the country slowly, and we are seeing things like FTA (free-trade agreement) with United States, something which Mahathir would have never done.

Race relations has gotten worse in the past year. Everything has become sensitive. Even the general election Abdullah won with a landslide had many irregularities. We think he's not in control. He's someone we can't look upon to resolve serious problems. When they are serious problems, he asks everyone not to discuss them. He does not give solutions. When something is perceived to become a problem, he'll ask everyone not to talk about it.

Dr Denison Jayasooria, Suhakam (Human Rights Commission) commissioner

Declines to give a grade

He has the right emphasis on transparency and good governance, and ensuring that those institutions that were set up will actually fulfill them in practice. There are gaps, and how it is being delivered, and I also made greater recommendation to balance the monitoring mechanism, not just in-house but also external.

There are more calls for some legislative changes, to remove the restrictions, but now there is the democratic space for dialogue. Legislation that curb it (expression through media) are in existence.

While the prime minister has said we have made a lot of initiative for change, it remains to be seen whether it has taken root enough, whether there are yet institutional roots for reforms. Once those things come into place, it would make reform a more effective key agenda.

Zainah Anwar, Sisters in Islam director

Declines to give a grade

We commend the prime minister in the opening up democratic spaces. He allowed a more vibrant, though not necessarily informed, debate in Parliament, and space for more critical stories in mainstream press. He has shown support of women's rights and his speeches consistently advocates justice and equality for women.

He has also set up a cabinet committee on gender equality, parliamentary select committees, human rights, Myanmar (Burma) and gender caucuses. Abdullah has also shown himself to be responsive to the concerns of women's groups on the discriminatory amendments to the Islamic Family Law.

However, while Malaysians believe in his vision, we remain to be convinced that he can muster the political will to support and follow through on his vision for an administration that is committed to justice, equality, democracy and transparency. Various issues need to be seriously addressed such as corruption and violations of human rights such as the Bloody Sunday incident in KLCC are still occurring.

IPCMC and other committees to improve the ethnic relations are yet to be set up. There is slow progress of the cabinet committee and government machinery in translating into action the governments' commitment to end discrimination against women.

At a time when we are witnessing an increasingly narrow and rigid understanding and interpretation of Islam and Islamic practices which will erode racial and religious harmony in Malaysia, the government is seen to have succumbed to threats of mob mobilisation and violence by extremists. This includes the gag order to discuss the issue of freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution and the banning of books.

Ramon Navaratnam, Transparency International president

Grade - B++

Under the circumstances, today's political mood is very different from the time when he was elected. I think his initiative for reforms were well received and there were not so much resistance from groups that are challenging them.

With the recent spat with Mahathir, it has not made things easier. Hopefully this would be put behind us. We expect that from now on, after the Umno general assembly meeting, Pak Lah would be able to harness greater support to overcome the vested groups that have been seriously affected by his leadership.

That way, there would be a faster pace to reforms, and his grading can go from B++ to an A-.

Yap Swee Seng, Suaram executive director

Grade - D

Abdullah's performance in the past three years has been very disappointing. He has promised to reform the police, to fight corruption and promote transparency, which gave him a landslide victory in the last election. But he has generally failed to live up to these promises, despite the overwhelming support that he received in the last election based on these pledges.

This is evident in his new cabinet line-up where disappointedly most of the corrupted minister still remained in power and his failure to curb corruption by making the Anti-Corruption Agency independent from the government with real powers.

The effectiveness of his anti-graft campaign is questionable when small fries are prosecute while the big fish are allowed to be free with total impunity. More importantly, the prime minister and his own family members themselves have failed to provide convincing explanation to the public on the nepotism allegations against them.

There is no sign that the state of human rights under Abdullah's administration has improved. The three laws that provide for indefinite detention without trial - ISA, the Emergency Ordinance (EO) and the Dangerous Drugs Act - continue to exist with no sight of abolition despite the prime minister calling for fair trial for two Malaysians detained by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention and the recommendations from Suhakam and the Royal Commission on Police to abolish the EO and the ISA.

Abdullah has failed to this date to set up the IPCMC, the most important suggestion of the Royal Commission on Police to check police abuse of power and human rights violations. As a result, the complaints of police abuse of powers such as deaths in custody, clamp down on the right to public assembly, excessive violence by police was condoned in dispersing peaceful assembly, extortion of money and arbitrary detention of migrants and asylum seekers continue unabatedly.

The right to freedom of expression is also severely curtailed with the black out of news such as the protest on fuel hike, the alleged Scomi's involvement in nuclear weapons, the gag order on the discussion of freedom of religion, etc. More alarmingly, media freedom is deteriorating with newspapers such as Sarawak Tribune and Guangming Daily banned and suspended for three weeks even though an apology was made. At least two top editors of the China Press were forced to resign due to is report on the nude squat incident.

The only contribution to Abdullah's credit is the amendments of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) and the Penal Code which have incorporated several recommendations of the Royal Commission on Police and the Royal Commission on the nude squat incident which are more in line with human rights. Unfortunately, this contribution is regrettably also offset by the provisions on anti-terrorist activities in the CPC and Penal Code that gives widespread and unchecked powers to the minister and the police.

Perhaps an important indication that nothing much has changed under the Abdullah's administration is that the recommendations of the Suhakam continued to be ignored by Abdullah's government.

Yeo Yang Poh, Bar Council chairperson

Declines to give a grade

There has been more openness on the part of the present government to receive views and comments. But it is still far from enough. The promotion of more space, greater transparency and accountability must not only continue, but the pace must be quickened.

Also, being more receptive to views is of course a good start, but this in itself is not enough without quickly implementing policies that are created or improved upon as a result of the views obtained. This needs to be done.

The judiciary was destroyed in 1988. There have been piecemeal efforts to restore credibility in some aspects. However, when an entire structure has been destroyed, it is insufficient to just perform some repair works here and there. What is needed is total rebuilding. That has yet to happen.