Flawed democracy stamp not good for business So now Malaysia has been categorized as a “flawed democracy” by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Just when we thought we just had to worry about the Transparency International annual corruption index, the Reader’s Digest rudeness poll, the United States’s annual human rights country report, the highly respected EIU will begin to keep a close eye on the state of democracy in Malaysia. Apparently, this new index will look at 167 countries out of 192 independent states and gauge their level of democracy. Categories such as the electoral process, political participation, civil liberties will be scrutinized. Why would the EIU start such an index? The simple truth is that investor criteria is getting sophisticated by the day and every minute detail about a country will be picked apart, prodded and analyzed to gauge the degree of investor friendliness of that nation. Investors will pay good money for such an index. Economic growth for most nations can only be fed by foreign investment and Malaysia is heavily dependent on FDIs to sustain the kind of growth which can ensure UMNOputeras are taken care off. Malaysia will have a serious problem with this new EIU index. We have started at nearly the bottom of the list with countries like Mongolia, Timor Leste for company. And our foreign direct investment has begun to dry up as it is. Just ten years ago, we were giving Singapore sleepless nights with our ambitions of being a hub for finance, transportation and information technology. In the mid-1990s, Malaysia even ranked sixth in the world as a beacon for foreign investments – the combined value of shares on the stock market was only below Japan and Hong Kong in Asia. Now, we have the worst performing stock market. Today, the country's ranking as a destination for foreign capital has slipped to the 62nd spot, according to a recent survey by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. A “flawed democracy” stamp on our foreheads is not going to get us out of this rut. Will the government now find excuses, with its spin doctors wriggling and twisting to put a façade of non-interest in this new EIU index, as how the Prime Minister waved off the TI index with a disdainful flick of his hand?  ¶ 10:05 AM