How should we define "gutter politics"?

WHEN I googled "define gutter politics", it appeared "of the worst kind: offensive and immoral."

So, from the Google's definition, I can say that its pronounceable meaning is "dirty politics", which has been popularly said by the public to describe any act of embarrassing politicians via any unwanted form of embarrassment that diminishes the politicians' public images.

As a writer, I feel pulled to attract readers to rationally conceptualise gutter politics with correct and unbiased understandings.

In this modern era of politics, every politician, regardless of political flags, aims for a long survival and is ambitious about pursuing certain top political echelons like being a country's president.

No one in this world joins mainstream politics for a hobby or just for the sake of being prominently known like a movie star even most of elected politicians are not so famous that people think they are just normal uncles and aunties.

Being ambitious in politics is not sinful, but how could a politician successfully pursue his political ambition is the question of the day.

"Politics is dirty" is not just a plain perception or a fictional say. It's real. But who else makes the politics dirty besides insane politicians? Their personal drivers?

Recently, "gutter politics" has been famously mouthed by many political spectators of this land. Its definitions are variant that some of them are derailed by political fanaticisms of the existing clans of 'well-known' political figures.

As I conclusively captured from people's tweets on Twitter, my random conversations with friends and new strangers I met, and public opinions vlogged on YouTube, gutter politics, as they said, is an act of humiliating a political figure by exposing his or her "immoralities", which the act is invisibly perpetrated or silently masterminded by an unseen individual whose aim is crippling the politician's rise to the stars.

Some others took gutter politics as a fabrication, be it photograph, video or audio, created by a known or unrealised political enemy with a fixed purpose of exterminating his or her political opponent(s) whom he or she feels inconveniently threatened in achieving a certain political trophy. In short, they think gutter politics is just a modification of pure truth, or we love to call it "slander".

I don't want to corroborate any of the said "definitions" as this article was not intentionally penned to express a conclusive definition but to generate readers' own thoughts.

So, in your own words of views, how should "gutter politics" be understood?

---

* Amerul Azry Abdul Aziz is an independent writer who now views politics as something that can be researched.

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.