KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 — The Pakatan Harapan (PH) government will request the Election Commission (EC) to hold fresh elections in seats where candidates are suspected to have paid cash for votes, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.
Alluding to Sabah, the seventh prime minister slammed the practice of money politics in exchange for votes, saying it was a violation of the people’s trust.
He also criticised the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), which he accused of turning a blind eye to money politics during the official election campaigning period from April 28 to May 8.
“When we find evidence that the person won through corruption, we will request that the election be invalidated. We are looking into the law on this,” he told a news conference at the Yayasan Al-Bukhary here.
He said Sabah was an example where incidents of money politics was rife, asserting that Parti Warisan Sabah — which is friendly to the PH pact — won 35 state seats in the May poll, but which was later whittled to 29 seats due to the EC’s many recounts overnight.
“Now they have a problem because they cannot form a government,” Dr Mahathir said.
He said PH regards offers to bribe “to get certain people to crossover using money” as corruption.
“You can have people switching parties because of principles, but if they are bought over, we do not recognise that as a proper change of party,” he added.
“Throughout the election, the MACC seemed to ignore the fact that corruption was rife. Everywhere you see, we have pictures to show that people were being corrupt.”
He also reiterated that he was simply upholding the rule of law.
“We’re not taking revenge, but there are a lot of areas which are very grey, where people make use of money to buy support.
“That also is corruption, as much as buying members of the party in order to achieve majority,” Dr Mahathir added.
