Money beginning to flow to ‘influence’ candidates at Umno polls

(MM) – Money is starting to roll in the Umno election campaign to the extent that some members are billing it as an “oiling the machinery” process.

One division head said yesterday the money was already flowing and division heads who traditionally lead their respective campaign machinery have already received the greasing agent.

“Nothing new about this and delegates, besides looking at the candidates’ agenda or philosophy, can still be influenced with a little greasing,” he said.

This is in addition to the usual rhetoric about rejuvenating the party, recognising wisdom with old age, the need for a blend of old and young and many more words of wisdom that are being coined and thrown to the 150,000-odd Umno delegates to the Oct 19 party polls.

With six aspirants for the vice-presidents posts, where three are incumbents, and 64 aspirants for the 25 supreme council posts, delegates are in quite a “confusing state” on who to pick.

A contestant for the supreme council post said anything could happen and anyone could be picked, since the delegates, most of whom do not even know who the contestants are, go through the list and wonder.

So, in many cases, according to a division leader, these delegates depended very much on the division chief’s input as division chiefs were exposed to the contestants and also to the leaders.

“And you know what? We are wanted by many contestants, especially aspirants for the vice-presidents posts and they cannot go round meeting all the delegates,” he said.

As the race for the vice-presidency picks up momentum, the incumbents and aspirants alike begin to strengthen their positions through their network or campaign machinery, and this where the division heads are very much sought after.

“Oiling the individual campaign machinery” is the word now used to “legalise” money politics which Umno is trying hard to eliminate or at the very least reduce.

In this “oiling business”, money is used for expenses which are to be used by the division heads who lead the campaign machinery which in turn, depending on the influence of the division heads involved, flow to delegates from branches.

The incumbents, may they be vice-presidents or supreme council members, are hard pressed to retain their positions for without positions, they will lose power and along with that lose income and “face”.

Asked how much money can influence a delegate, the division head said it depended on locality where if rural areas few hundred ringgit and urban more.