He said based on a survey carried out among 487,000 respondents, Malaysians were not satisfied with the progress made in stamping out corruption.
Mahathir, who is Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman, noted the complaints of those who accused the government of not moving fast enough or not taking stringent measures against criminals.
“We need to explain that when we try to do something according to the rule of law, there must be sufficient evidence before a case is brought to court,” he said. “This slows us down.”
He added that many of those involved in corruption comprised leaders from the previous administration, and action had not been taken against them because Putrajaya was focusing on the “big cases”.
“We have not given attention to small and more clear-cut cases which can secure a conviction if brought to court.
“But our decision now is not to focus only on big cases that need concrete and clear action, but also on small cases involving other leaders in the previous government who are no less wrong,” he said in a press conference after the PH presidential council meeting today.
On whether any such investigations had been initiated, Mahathir said some had been carried out but were incomplete and not ready to be brought to court.
The survey, by Berkshire Media, was to gauge the people’s perception of the PH government in its first 100 days in power. It was carried out towards the tail end of that period.
Mahathir said while there were those who believed the government had not achieved the desired results, others were satisfied with its performance so far.
“The positive feedback on the present administration exceeds the negative,” he said. “The negative parts centre a lot on the area of transportation.
“But when we did the survey, we found out that they were not satisfied with the big spending on the MRT, not the facilities. They were happy with the facilities, but not the expenditure.”
The PPBM chairman said many also believed the government had succeeded in repealing unfair legislation and enacting new laws, giving the example of the sales and services tax which was passed in the Dewan Negara.