Nice try on 'petrol bribery' claim, Kit Siang tells Najib

DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang has shot down former premier Najib Abdul Razak's reminder that a judge who declared the Cameron Highlands seat vacant and triggered a by-election had said that petrol money is a form of corruption too.

In a statement, Lim questioned Najib's alleged attempt to deliberately "misquote and distort" the ruling delivered by Election Court judge Justice Azizah Nawawi in the petition filed by DAP candidate M Manogaran.

"He (Najib) cannot be more wrong when he claimed the election court had declared that RM20 'petrol money' was bribery.

"But the even more important questions are Najib’s motives for such a bizarre claim," said the Iskandar Puteri MP.

"Deliberately or otherwise, Najib had misquoted and distorted the judgement of the election judge in claiming that she had said in her judgement that 'money' whether as 'duit rokok' or 'duit minyak' constituted bribery.

"She did not make such ruling," stressed Lim.

Previously, opposition politicians had taken to Twitter to mock Pakatan Harapan over photographs showing money being handed out to people in Harapan Cameron Highlands T-shirts.

However, Harapan leaders, including Manogaran, who was once again fielded in the seat, said the photograph merely shows the party’s campaign volunteers being reimbursed for their petrol expenses, and doing so is not in violation of election laws.

Najib in a Facebook post last night, cited a Malaysiakini report that quoted excerpts from Justice Azizah's oral judgement delivered in court on Nov 30.

"It is no matter that the money was given as 'duit rokok' (cigarette money) or 'duit minyak' (petrol money) as it constitutes bribery,” the judge was quoted as saying in the excerpt of the report.

Lim, however, cited the judge's full written judgement and argued it was clearly implied that money could be used legitimately in circumstances not meant to induce a voter to vote.

Meanwhile, constitutional lawyer Syahredzan Johan stressed that there were stark differences between "corrupt practices" established by Justice Azizah and the recent payments made to Harapan volunteers.

"The two scenarios are as different as night and day, and they should not be conflated into the same category," said Syahredzan, who is also Lim's political secretary.

Citing a series of tweets from BN's official account, Syahredzan pointed out there was a blatant attempt to equate the two different issues.

Unlike Harapan's clarification, Syahredzan said MIC GE14 candidate C Sivarraajh did not argue in court that individuals found to have been given money were BN’s GE14 campaign volunteers.

"Indeed, from the factual findings, these individuals were batins and voters, and the monies given were to induce them to vote.

"There was no issue of reimbursing volunteers in Cameron Highland EP," said Syahredzan who stressed that Azizah's findings still stands as Sivarraajh never filed an appeal against the decision. - Mkini