The Money Factor In Elections And Politics

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People presumably in the know say that the Umno Baru/BN election campaign this year has been starved of money. Why? Because former PM Najib Abdul Razak - yes, he of 1MDB fame - languishes in jail and the alleged funding of elections from illicit 1MDB funds which happened in 2018 and 2013 has dried up.
How much this will impede BN’s ability to garner votes at GE15 is highly debatable but it is obvious from anecdotal evidence obtained by visiting some constituencies that some of the candidates are better funded than others, irrespective of the parties they come from.
Interestingly, days before the elections, High Court judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin found that on a balance of probability, money and jewellery worth RM680 million seized from the Pavilion residences in 2018 were not the result of unlawful activity.
That decision, however, does not explain how the wealth was obtained. Are there not laws which require proof to be shown as to how assets were obtained and whether the necessary declarations were made?
However, cash from this even if it were returned now - and they probably won’t be if the government appeals the decision and asks for a stay of execution - may be too late for GE15.
If one takes a walk along the main streets of Kuala Selangor, one can’t help being inundated by prominent posters of BN, with a sprinkling of PN and Pakatan Harapan posters, especially in more prominent places.
Umno/BN candidate, caretaker finance minister (he came to the post via a senatorial route) Tengku Zafrul Aziz is featured prominently in many posters as well as along the Latar highway one takes to reach Kuala Selangor and a major connecting road there.
An interesting side note is that although it was PN’s Muhyiddin Yassin who brought Tengku Zafrul in as finance minister, he contests under Umno/BN and is now the treasurer of Selangor Umno, which is a powerful position.
Significantly, while there were Harapan posters, we could not find any showing the face of their candidate, Amanah/Harapan’s former health minister, Dzulkefly Ahmad, in Kuala Selangor, perhaps indicating the discrepancy in funding levels.
BN’s Kuala Selangor candidate Tengku Zafrul Aziz (centre)As a caretaker finance minister and a former CEO of CIMB Group and group managing director of Avenue Capital Resources, now ECM Libra, amongst others and a long-time exposure to business, Tengku Zafrul will have no problems raising funds for his campaign. So long as spending remains within the limits set, no laws are broken.
To be fair, the same can be said for DAP’s Yeo Bee Yin who is contesting in Puchong and who is married to a billionaire plantation owner. In this case, questions of conflicts of interest were raised which Yeo vehemently denied.
Over at neighbouring Sungai Buloh, PKR/Harapan’s candidate R Ramanan faces parachuted Umno/BN candidate Khairy Jamaluddin, previously MP for Rembau in Negeri Sembilan. The poster war is apparently more even here but it is an interesting seat because of the backgrounds of the two candidates.
Ramanan has raised eyebrows by declaring net assets of RM63.5 million, including jewellery worth RM4 million. Khairy’s assets are not known because Umno does not require asset declaration whereas PKR does - the only political party that requires it.
There was a public altercation between Ramanan and Khairy when the former asked why a civil case he was involved in was raised but not Khairy’s ECM Libra involvement where a soft loan from shareholders enabled Khairy to buy a stake in the company. Khairy threatened to sue.
Poster war muted in Bagan Datuk
Further up the road from Sungai Buloh to Kuala Selangor past Sungai Besar and Teluk Intan is the parliamentary constituency of Bagan Datuk in Perak where PKR/Harapan’s Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin is engaged in battle with Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Another interesting candidate is Gerak Independent co-founder Tawfik Ismail whose stated aim is to stop Zahid and all that he represents. Tawfik is the son of the “best prime minister Malaysia never had” former deputy prime minister under Abdul Razak Hussein (Najib’s father), Ismail Abdul Rahman.
It’s a contest that Zahid must win or face not only political oblivion but possible jail if he is found guilty of 47 charges of corruption currently in progress. Even if he wins, unless Umno comes to power, his prospects are rather grim.
The poster war here is muted, Zahid is not in your face the way Tengku Zafrul is in Kuala Selangor but outside a police station in Hutan Melintang on the outskirts of Bagan Datuk, his poster, complete with face, is displayed prominently.
Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in Bagan Datuk on nomination dayAll this makes for interesting stuff to read but the money factor, especially aid in cash and other ways extended to political parties and candidates, during elections and after is one of the main problems in Malaysian politics, and indeed all over the world.
For Malaysia, the problem became increasingly serious in the 1980s when under Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister many government holdings were privatised.
Think independent power producers, toll road concessions, water concessions, military contracts, approved permits and numerous mega projects which made the privileged few into billionaires. Many of these were given to businesses connected closely to politicians in a symbiotic relationship in exchange for funds and support.
Najib took the game several notches up when he permitted the theft of tens of billions of borrowed money out of national development company 1MDB with his co-conspirator Jho Low, who is still at large, from 2009 onwards.
This nexus between politics and business has seen the enrichment of perhaps hundreds of businessmen of all races benefiting from overpriced, lucrative projects, many of whom have absolutely no knowledge and expertise in the areas for which they were given awards and were just mere middlemen.
So much so that the entry into politics of many people has become a path to quick and immense riches by the facilitating of lucrative, and often needless, contracts for the provision of all kinds of infrastructure and services at all levels of government - federal, state, and local.
This money factor which becomes exemplified during elections but is all the time prevalent in politics has become so magnified since the 1980s that it threatens to engulf the nation in a furious uncontrolled fire of corruption, destroying resources or putting them in the hands of those who already have way too much.
The only way to put a brake on this and reverse this process is to vote for a party or coalition which is likely to do something about it.
That rules out Umno/BN and its offshoot PN, all of whose leaders have very serious governance issues and who have no depth of leadership to take over from the older ones very used to ways of patronage and corruption, where entitlement to illicit riches has become a way of life in politics. - Mkini
P GUNASEGARAM, a former editor at online and print news publications, and head of equity research, is an independent writer and analyst.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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