Umrah trip, hotel rooms for votes in Umno Lembah Pantai polls, say complainants

Raja Nong Chik (2nd from right), seen here campaigning with his wife ahead of the May 5 general election this year. He failed to wrest the Lembah Pantai seat from PKR, but was elected as Umno's divisional head there in the recent party polls. - The Malaysian Insider pic, November 19, 2013.A month after the Umno polls, a member has complained to the party's election committee that delegates were bribed with hotel rooms and umrah packages to elect Lembah Pantai division office-bearers.

Asat Ahmad said he also lodged a complaint with the party's disciplinary board on the preferred list which was distributed to elect the division committee members for the next three years.

A letter to election committee chairman Tan Sri Mohammad Tajol Rosli Ghazali and another note to acting disciplinary board chairman Tan Sri Megat Najmuddin Megat Khas were sent on October 31.

Copies of Asat's complaint were also given to Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor. Asat, a former branch chairman in the Lembah Pantai Umno division, said Umno should stop leaders from destroying the party through money politics and expressed hope the leadership would take steps to treat the problem which has reached a “cancerous” stage.

"The results of the last two general elections showed that the people rejected Umno and the party will be destroyed if the situation was not corrected," he said in a letter made available to The Malaysian Insider.

Barisan Nasional lost the Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat to Nurul Izzah Anwar in 2008 and failed to recapture the seat in the May 5 general election.

Another complainant, Mohyiddin Mohmad, a former Lembah Pantai division committee member, said on October 19, he was at the Pullman Hotel in Jalan Pantai Baru to attend the division meeting when he was approached with the preferred list.

Mohyiddin claimed he was also informed by hotel employees that 50 rooms had been booked to accommodate delegates attending the meeting.

"As a past division committee member, I was unaware and shocked that rooms were booked," he said, adding that he believed that the practice was masterminded by senior leaders in the division.

Mohyiddin said the distribution of a preferred list went against democracy and prevented delegates from picking candidates on their own volition.

In the recent divisional elections, Datuk Seri Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin, who was the former Federal Territories minister, was returned as the chief after defeating Mohd Ikhsan Samsudin with a 200-vote majority.

Asat claimed that one of the candidates for the top divisional post had sponsored 25 branch heads from the division to perform the umrah in July. "I was one of them and all expenses were borne by the division chief," he said, adding that he had proof to back his claims.

Raja Nong Chik, however, dismissed Asat's allegations as baseless.

"No such thing happened. This is only surfacing because those who contested lost and cannot accept the results," he said.