‘More problems if BN continued ruling’ - ex-Umno man

CAMERON POLLS | Former Umno supreme council member Mustapa Mohamed has urged Cameron Highlands voters to vote against BN in the upcoming by-election.

Speaking at a low-key ceramah kelompok in Kampung Kuala Medang in BN stronghold Jelai last night, he highlighted that the former government had allegedly failed to return RM19 billion in GST refunds, along with an additional RM16 billion in income and property gains tax refunds, to the rakyat.

He also rued how Felda was more than RM8 billion in debt.

The former minister thus predicted that BN would have brought the country to ruins if it had extended its rule beyond the 14th general election.

“This is a compilation of problems that we face. If BN had continued to run the country, the country would be facing an ever larger problem.

“[...] Apparently what we (BN) did was not sustainable. Satu hari syok (it felt good for a little while) but then eventually we would have needed to pay our debts at a high price,” he said.

The country’s long-time international trade and industry minister, up till BN lost in GE14, Mustapa maintained that he had no knowledge of these alleged scandals when he was in government.

“To be honest, I did not know about these things.

“We ministers, we did not know. We were not the finance minister so we did not know,” he said.

'Support Mahathir’s leadership'

The Jeli MP quit Umno in September last year and in the following month, he joined Harapan component party Bersatu. Last night was his first time campaigning for the coalition.

At the ceramah, he repeatedly appealed to the audience to back the coalition led by Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“All these big problems that we face today needs a strong leadership to solve it and such leadership can be provided by Mahathir and his team,” he said.

About 50 people from the quiet Malay village came out to hear Mustapha and other Harapan leaders speak last night. Many chose to sit in the shadows and under trees, shirking when photographs were taken.

Just the night before, Umno and PAS had held a mega rally down the road from the village, during which, speakers alleged that DAP wanted to see an end to Malay special rights, the monarchy and Malay as the national language.

Mustapa denied these claims, saying that both DAP and Harapan were committed to upholding things enshrined the Federal Constitution.

“They (Umno and PAS) are playing around with racial and religious issues.

“I hope you will think this through as people will say whatever they can when an election is near just to get votes. All sorts of slander,” he added.

Harapan is fielding Pahang DAP deputy chairperson M Manogaran while BN has named Orang Asli former top cop Ramli Mohd Noor as their direct candidate for the Jan 26 poll.

Two independent candidates, Sallehudin Ab Talib and Wong Seng Yee, will also be contesting. - Mkini