THE MOTHER OF MONEY POLITICS WAS IN GE13 – EXPERT PINS BLAMES ON UMNO, MCA & MIC

MONEY politics has seeped into general elections as a result of the failure to curb it at party election level, Universiti Malaya’s professor Dr Edmund Terence Gomez said.

He described Malaysia’s 13th general election in 2013 as the “defining moment” as money politics was at its most rampant ever, thanks to exposes on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

“We used to talk about money politics in Umno, MCA and MIC, but now we are talking about money politics in a general election, money politics from the party that has seeped into the national arena.

“The hauling of money in this election (2013) was tremendous and we had no clue where this money was coming from, the money was flowing (throughout) the campaign period,” the expert on Malaysia’s political economy said at a forum on Political Financing Reforms, organised by the G25 group in Kuala Lumpur today.

Gomez said revelations have shown that the US$681 million (RM2.6 billion in 2015, when the matter was exposed) from 1MDB which flowed into former prime minister Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts were used for the 2013 general election.

Earlier this month, the Pakatan Harapan government’s special investigative task force on 1MDB announced that more than 400 bank accounts had been frozen on suspicion of receiving 1MDB funds from Najib’s account.

Some of the recipients were political parties and were given funds for the 2013 general election.

– https://www.themalaysianinsight.com