Aminah threatens more expose on Penang PKR
(The Sun) After producing a spy recording of two PKR members allegedly offering bribes to her, Penanti by-election independent candidate for Aminah Abdullah now threatens to expose a "secret" on the state party leadership.
Today, she challenged Penang PKR chief Datuk Zahrain Mohamed Hashim to reveal his involvement in an unsavoury incident in a hotel here.
"I want to ask him: Do you remember what happened in a hotel in Nibong Tebal?" she said, referring to what is understood to have been a party meeting held between 2006 and 2007.
"He knows what happened," she told reporters yesterday, stressing that she wanted Zahrain himself to answer within a day or two. Polling is on Sunday.
Aminah is locked in a four-corner fight in the by-election with PKR's Mansor Othman and two other independents, Nai Khan Ari and Kamarul Ramizu Idris.
She warned if Zahrain remained silent, she would announce the matter which had affected her dignity.
Aminah told reporters this in a press conference after campaigning in Kampung Simpang Tiga Kubang Ulu here.
Asked why she had not raised the contentious issues with PKR's disciplinary board, Aminah said: "I had informed president (Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail) and party adviser (Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim) what happened, but nothing was done.
"It was left aside just like that. And the state leadership, instead, slammed me with 11 allegations," she lamented, adding that it was one of the reasons she and her family left the party in 2007.
Aminah also said she had yet to receive the legal notice from PKR to retract her claims of being offered inducement allegedly contained in the secret recording.
"I want to see the content (of the notice) before I do anything. I will still stand by the claims I have made," she said, adding she would get a lawyer to examine the notice.
She also claimed PKR members Cheah Kah Peng and Peter Lim Eng Nam, who were featured in the recording, had invited themselves to her house where they had had the conversation in question, contrary to assertions made by the duo that she had invited them.
Aminah added that she had received several threatening and lewd calls from anonymous individuals since exposing the secret recording.
"If these people dare, why don't they call from a number which can be traced? Why use a public phone?" she asked, labelling them as cowards.
Aminah said she was questioned for a second time by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in its office in Butterworth for over three hours on Tuesday night on the alleged inducement, following an earlier session that lasted more than five hours the day before.
Aminah handed a copy of the digital recording and three photographs to the Election Commission on Tuesday.
When contacted, Zahrain said there was nothing to hide about the meeting.
"If she wants to expose it, let her expose," he said, while dodging questions on what the matter was. "It's not like I brought her there into the hotel."
In a press conference in Yayasan Aman here, PKR elections director Saifuddin Nasution said the party would rather focus on campaiging in the remaining four days rather than answering Aminah's irrelevant claims.
"We have directed our lawyers, and actions have been taken. Full Stop," he said. "That is Aminah digging up one issue after another. We'll leave it to her."
Saiffuddin also reiterated that the party was still awaiting Aminah's response to the legal notice sent to her, adding that actions will be taken if she does not respond in the given time.
