I refer to the news report in malaysiakini quoting Ping Chew of S&P to the effect that "Abdullah needs big election win to tackle economy". This statement smacks of political partisanship.

To be sure, if Ping Chew is a Malaysian citizen, taxpayer and registered voter, he or she is perfectly entitled to vote for BN and even campaign for BN in personal capacity after work. For example, Ping Chew could speak in BN's ceramah. I challenge him/her to do so.

But to abuse his/her company and professional position to do so publicly is unacceptable, unprofessional and blatantly biased. Let me educate Ping Chew on the relationships between the economy and democratic politics. Ping Chew seems to still live in the dream world of 'Asian values' and 'orthodox development studies' of the 60s and 70s that failed pathetically during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.

What Ping Chew effectively advocates is that the stronger the government, the better the economy would become. One may cite Singapore as an example but look at what happened to the former Soviet Union and former Eastern European countries, as well as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Kim's North Korea or Suharto's Indonesia.

These counter-examples show clearly that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Strong government with excessive powers only breeds corruption, nepotism and cronyism that work to the detriment of a healthy, transparent, accountable and efficient allocation of resources.

The fact that Malaysia is relatively better than these counter-examples can be credited not only to BN but also to the opposition which has exposed corruption, cronyism and nepotism that distort price and wage at both micro- and macro-economic level.

However, the opposition has still not been strong enough in the 22-year of Mahathir's mega-orgy of building mega-structures. The reason that Malaysia was hit by the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis was because not enough countervailing forces were available outside the Umno-dominated corrupt, decadent and oppressive system.

I suppose that even in a private company there is also the need for checks and balances in personnel management, financial accounting and auditing. It should be simple enough for Ping Chew to make real-life comparison and draw real-life lessons.

Finally, correct me if my impression is wrong, but I have observed that some foreign wired services and Singapore's official papers seem to be actively campaigning for Abdullah in defiance of the principle of fairness and balance.

Make no mistake: there are more honest and people-minded (not purely profit-minded) professionals in all fields who support the opposition. Ping Chew should stop patronising and abusing professional organisations and positions to advocate or campaign in the name of 'economic prediction' or 'economic science'. We all know the tricks.