Ex-supreme councillor: Yes, there is money politics in Umno

(MM) – Amid a storm of claims and denials of money politics in Umno, Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah has confirmed its practice in the party’s last election campaign as a tool to shore up support, but said its prevalence was “understandable”.

The former Umno Supreme councillor said the revamp of Umno’s electoral process in the Malay party’s previous internal polls was meant to deter money politics, but had failed in its first execution and greater measures were needed to prevent repeats.

“The assumption was if you have more people, then there is less possibility of money politics,” Saifuddin told The Malay Mail Online in an exclusive interview last week, referring to the bigger number of voters in the new system.

“Was there money politics? I say yes. But we need to qualify that statement… There is a difference between money spent for your own campaign machinery and money given to delegates as a sogokan (bribe), meaning buying votes.”

Saifuddin explained that it had become an acceptable and expected practice in Umno for leaders to provide members with petrol money supposedly to cover transport costs, whenever they held an event such as during campaigning the day before the polls.

The questions to be addressed, he said, concerned the definition of “petrol money”, and how much of “petrol money” can be distributed by Umno candidates before it was considered a violation of morals and ethics.

The former Temerloh MP also pointed out that the immense number of voters this time around had made it important for a candidate to gather his own political machinery.

“During the campaign, we realised that many grassroots leaders didn’t really know who were running for supreme council,” said Saifuddin, claiming that in a division, only around 100 members will recognise all the candidates.

As a way to remedy this problem, every division will come out with a list of either 20 or 30 candidates to guide its members on whom to vote into the 25-member Supreme Council, he said.

“There is this necessity, understandable, to come out with this guide. So how does a candidate get his name into the cai (menu)? That’s where you need the machinery,” he said, although admitting that the practice is wrong.

According to Saifuddin, this is where the ethical line can once again be crossed, as there is unclear distinction whether a candidate is paying division members either as part of his own machinery, or as vote buying.

The Umno man admitted that it will be very difficult to present hard proof of the practice, as none of those involved will gladly come out and admit it.

He also claimed that although the practice is less blatant this year due to an increase of voters, it has however become more dangerous as the practice has now reached more Umno members and gone deeper into the grassroots.

Saifuddin however refuted claims that he was only bringing this topic up after his double loss in the polls, both as a Supreme Council candidate, and as a candidate for the Temerloh deputy chief hat.

This is not the first time I’m talking about money politics… I’m not a crybaby, because I lost then I talk about money politics,” said the Global Movement of Moderates Foundation (GMM) CEO.

He admitted that he had expected to lose his previous Supreme Council post, since he only kept a skeleton machinery of volunteers instead of a well-oiled machinery.

“When I campaigned, I met people in large numbers, in small numbers, on one-to-one basis, gave text message blasts. I presented delegates with my latest book ‘Memacu Transformasi’… that’s almost all that I did,” he said of his campaign for the Temerloh post.

“Then I got this from a friend who is a delegate, somebody had told him, ‘The other candidate gave me RM50… but Saifuddin only gave me a book!’,” he related, laughing.

The Umno man however was reluctant to bring members who have admitted to receiving “petrol money” to justice, pointing out that educating party members would be more relevant in eradicating money politics instead of disciplinary action.

“This is not a legal matter, this is about habit, culture within the party. Because if you want to address it simply by looking at the legal view, it will be difficult,” he explained.

“I don’t blame the delegates. Money politics is about the candidates, not delegates … They don’t want to come out because they don’t think it is a problem they should be faced with.”

Saifuddin revealed that he will be meeting soon with Tan Sri Megat Najmuddin Megat Khas, acting chairman of the Special Committee of the Umno Disciplinary Board, to discuss the problem and disclose any knowledge that he has regarding the practice.

He said he will suggest for the party to have a guideline on the ceiling amount of “petrol money” that can be distributed as a token to members, and the maximum number of members each candidate can employ for his campaigning machinery.

“When we come out with this new election procedure, I thought we’re already drawing the line.

“I would like to think that we’ve drawn a line .. (I guess) now we need to draw a second line. It has to be the last one otherwise the party will suffer,” he stressed.

On Monday, former Umno president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had claimed that undeserving candidates had emerged as winner is the recent party polls thanks to money politics.

Some Umno Supreme Council members have hit back at him in return this week, saying his remark was an insult to the 146,000 delegates who had cast their votes this month.

The Umno elections saw the three incumbent vice-presidents re-elected, with the post of president and deputy president left uncontested.