New | More than half of Malaysians believe government withheld MH370 information

Over half of Malaysians say their government have been withholding information in the hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, a survey by a Malaysian opinion research firm has found.

The poll results, reported in news portal The Malaysian Insider, indicated that 54 per cent of the 1,029 respondents believed the Malaysian government hid information about Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Boeing 777-200 plane disappeared from civilian radar screens hours after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing on March 8.

Some 26 per cent of the respondents said the government had been truthful, while one fifth said they were unsure.

Almost all of the ethnic Chinese Malaysians who took part in the poll, along with a slight majority of Malay and Indian respondents, said they doubted the government had been transparent about information on the missing flight. 

The survey was conducted by the opinion research firm Merdeka Centre from March 24 to 30, according to The Malaysian Insider. 

Over a thousand respondents, proportional to the population in each parliamentary constituency, were selected through random stratified sampling methods in line with ethnicity, gender and age, said the firm.

The survey results did not surprise Wan Saiful Wan Jan, Chief Executive Officer of the Kuala Lumpur-based think tank Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, who said the Malaysian government had a reputation for keeping information to itself.