Dr M to name Umno members involved in money politics

PUTRAJAYA: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has promised to name Umno members implicated in money politics on his influential blog www.chedet.com.

He said he was willing to be sued for defamation and even risk arrest by the authorities because he was not afraid to expose the truth and the identities of such errant members.

“I can’t do anything about the complaints except to hand these over to the Umno disciplinary committee. I will put these names up in my blog.

“I am not afraid of being sued for libel or being arrested by the police. If they can release (blogger and Malaysia Today editor) Raja Petra Kamarudin, won’t they also be able to release me as well?” he said Wednesday in his dialogue with a group of Umno members and leaders, ex-ministers and Malay student groups at the Perdana Leadership Foundation here.

Earlier, an Umno member from the Parit division had complained of money politics in his area and had asked for Dr Mahathir to look into the list of names of those implicated in the division.

“Thank you for lodging a report. I hope there will be more who will come forward to lodge such reports,” he said. Earlier, in his speech, Dr Mahathir said voters would continue to reject Umno or the Barisan Nasional coalition if its new leader continues with the present policies and does not come down hard on corruption and money politics.

“Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has mentioned that he will continue with the teachings of Islam Hadhari. This is not a good sign as it shows that the transition is only in the person, and not in terms of policies.

“The voters did not like the policies that were put into place by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, so they will still reject Umno. So, there is no point in having such a transition,” he said.

Najib had recently pledged to continue promoting Islam Hadhari (Civilisational Islam) when he takes over as Prime Minister, saying that he was a great believer in the concept which was introduced by Abdullah.

Dr Mahathir said at a time when Umno needed a courageous leader to get rid of problems plaguing the party, Najib was merely trying to protect Abdullah’s “face”.
“We have to think whether the person taking over from the Prime Minister will get rid of all those in Umno who are now involved in corruption.

“If he is biased and there won’t be any cleaning up, the rakyat will reject the party. If they end up choosing the Opposition party, that will present us with a dilemma because their leadership is not convincing,” he said.