This is the reason BN lost Selangor - MB's office answers ex-MB

Former Selangor menteri besar Muhammad Muhammad Taib has been saddled with a puzzling question regarding Umno and BN losing the state in the 2008 general election.

Muhammad said while BN had won in backward states, which do not even have water supply, it, however, lost in a developed state like Selangor, which has ports, airports, roads and various facilities.

This evening, the office of his successor, Azmin Ali, provided the answer.

Former Selangor menteri besar Muhammad Muhammad Taib was saddled with a puzzling question regarding Umno and BN losing the state in the 2008 general election.

He said while BN had won in backward states, which do not even have water supply, it, however, lost in a developed state like Selangor, which has ports, airports, roads and various facilities.

This evening, his successor Azmin Ali's office provided the answer.

Referring to Muhammad as a “recycled politician”, the Menteri Besar Office's strategic communications director Yin Shao Loong claimed that the answer is common knowledge.

“By March 2008, Umno and BN had become irrelevant, even distasteful, to the voters of Selangor because the people were fed up with decades of corruption, wastage and mismanagement,” Yin said.

He said it was not a case of the people of Selangor suddenly becoming ungrateful for the roads, infrastructure, water and electricity supply.

“They were fed up that these basic amenities should have to be delivered via fat contracts to politically-connected cronies.

“They were fed up that the politicians approving these projects could swagger in and out of the country clutching suitcases stuffed with money,” he added.

This was an obvious reference to Muhammad's arrest at the Brisbane airport in 1997, carrying Singaporean, Malaysian and New Zealand bank notes worth US$1 million.

Muhammad (photo) was subsequently charged for failing to declare that he was carrying more than A$5,000 to Australian immigration, but was later acquitted.

He had pleaded that he could not understand English, and therefore could not comprehend Australian regulations.

S'gor now led by better men and women

Meanwhile, Yin questioned if the people must continually show gratitude to their “former colonial masters” instead of moving forward.

“Should we be nostalgic for the time when we had no democracy, no freedom to choose our leaders or sack them if they failed to perform?

“No. We do not have to accept that development must come with corruption, or that failed politicians should be entitled to office,” he said.

Yin said if Muhammad truly wanted to understand the lessons from 2008, he would realise that the state is now governed by better men and women.

“And that Umno and BN will continue to be rejected at the polls because they have failed to deal with the baggage of corruption, bad leadership and inability to reform themselves,” he added.

Muhammad had rejoined Umno in September this year, after stints in PAS and PKR.- Mkini