TOO POWERFUL A WARLORD FOR NAJIB TO IGNORE? DRUGS BUST OR SABOTAGE, BETS ARE ON UMNO WILL FIELD RIZALMAN AT BANDAR TUN RAZAK

Now that the police have confirmed that Datuk Rizalman Mokhtar’s urine sample has tested negative for drugs, will he be the BN candidate to contest the federal territory parliamentary seat of Bandar Tun Razak in GE14?

But wait. The number one question is: will the BN leadership give the chance to contest Bandar Tun Razak to Umno? Or again to MCA?

As we know, the two parties are in a tussle as to who should represent BN to contest the constituency.

MCA has been contesting Bandar Tun Razak from GE9 in 1995 to GE13 in 2013, winning three times.

MCA lost in 2008 and 2013 to former Selangor MB Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, then of PKR.

And the party is adamant that it has been allocated the seat again for GE14.

But Umno is equally adamant. Umno wants to put its own candidate there, claiming the “voters want a Malay candidate”.

Bandar Tun Razak is a Malay-majority constituency. 54% of the voters are Malays, 36% Chinese and 8% Indians.

And that is before the Election Commission’s recent redelineation exercise.

With the redelineation already passed by the Parliament and gazetted, Umno says the voters in Bandar Tun Razak are now “mostly Malays”, going on to say that some 20,000 Chinese voters have been transferred to Cheras, Bukit Bintang and Seputeh.

That apart, Umno claim they have been “working hard” in the area despite MCA contesting it for five general elections, something which Umno vice president Datuk Ahmad Zahid Hamidi acknowledged openly when he visited Bandar Tun Razak recently.

His remarks then were seen as a blow to MCA even though Zahid did not specifically say Umno would contest Bandar Tun Razak in GE14.

And the few MCA members present at the event were feeling “downtrodden” when their Umno counterparts began chanting Rizalman’s name as the BN candidate, with Zahid perceived to be in agreement with the Umno chants.

Khalid, now an independent after he was sacked by PKR in 2014, is not expected to defend his seat.

PKR will surely field its candidate while PAS could well enter the fray.Then there’s the possibility of independent candidates just like in 2013.

For BN, talk is rife that Umno will get the Bandar Tun Razak candidacy, not MCA, and their candidate will most likely be Rizalman.

In short, Rizalman was riding high when he got into the drug controversy. As we know, he and some friends were nabbed in a raid by police and MACC officers at a karaoke center in Kuala Lumpur.

And it was reported that all, including Rizalman, were initially tested positive for methamphetamine.

But, the police now said Rizalman’s urine sample had been cleared by Kuala Lumpur Hospital pathology unit and as such, no further action would be taken against the Umno man.

So, is he back in contest for the BN candidacy? If at all Umno gets to contest, will it be him or some other Umno personnel? Or is it status quo, meaning MCA will get to contest?

Big questions all that.

But Rizalman has maintained that he was set up and sabotaged. He nevertheless did not say by whom, but it was reported by Malaysiakini that he “declined to rule out the possibility of being sabotaged by MCA”.

And BN/Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Mansor agrees that Rizalman was sabotaged, saying, “It could be orchestrated by anyone in the light of the coming general elections.”

The bigger questions now: was Rizalman sabotaged? if so, by whom?

Answers are needed fast. Lest we have a situation when people cast suspicious eye on each other, accusing and being accused.

– Mysinchew