• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
  • Archives
  • Subscribe
The Nut Graph

The Nut Graph

Making Sense of Politics & Pop Culture

  • Projects
    • MP Watch
    • Found in Conversation
  • Current Issues
    • 6 Words
    • Commentary
    • Features
    • Found in Quotation
    • News
  • Columns
  • Interviews
    • Exclusives
    • Found in Malaysia
  • Multimedia
    • Audio
    • Pictures
    • Videos
  • Corrections
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Vault
    • Found in Translation

Ku Li: Ali Rustam should ask ROS to stop Umno polls

By Deborah Loh

March 19, 2009


Ali Rustam (File pic)

PETALING JAYA, 19 March 2009: Veteran Umno politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah says ousted deputy presidential candidate Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam should ask the Registrar of Societies (ROS) to stop the party polls next week for being denied his right to contest.

In remarks which appear geared towards preventing the elections from taking place, Tengku Razaleigh said the disciplinary board had contravened the Societies Act by denying Ali his candidacy, which was his right as a party member.

On 17 March, Umno’s disciplinary board found the Malacca Chief Minister guilty of political bribery through the actions of his agents and barred him from contesting the party’s number two post.

However, Ali kept his Umno membership while three of his agents who were found guilty of money politics were suspended for three years.

Tengku Razaleigh noted that the right of a member to contest in a society’s election and the right to vote are both constitutional.

“So long as Ali remains an Umno member, it is wrong to deprive him of his candidacy. The board can remove certain privileges, but not rights provided for under the constitution. Umno’s constitution cannot be interpreted contrary to the Societies Act.

“At the very least, his appeal against his punishment needs to be heard before the party elections commence next week,” Tengku Razaleigh said in a blog posting today.

Tainted polls, illegal polls

The Kelantan prince and former cabinet minister also said the Umno polls next week will be tainted and could be illegal if they proceed.

He said delegates ought to be investigated for accepting bribes from Ali. The disciplinary board should trace the inducements trail to identify delegates who received them and suspend their memberships.

“If not, the tainted votes of those participants will taint the entire party elections. So long as no thorough investigation by an independent agency has been conducted, there remains a real likelihood that the party elections will be tainted by corruption, and hence be illegitimate,” Tengku Razaleigh.

The board’s decision to bar Ali from contesting has been heavily criticised by Umno members and certain party leaders. The widely-held perception is that the board had been selective in its judgements, because while Ali was found guilty of the same offence as Umno Youth chief aspirant Khairy Jamaluddin, the latter was let off with a warning and still allowed to contest the polls.

Tengku Razaleigh said the board’s reason that there was a difference in the severity of the offences committed by Ali’s agents from Khairy’s, made the punishments seem “arbitrary and selective”.

Incumbent Youth chief and vice-presidential candidate Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein has said the board ought to investigate all election candidates to show that it was fair.

Report to MACC

The disciplinary board is now duty-bound to report Ali and his agents, as well as others found guilty of money politics, to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

This is because money politics are considered the same as political bribery, which is a crime under the Penal Code. The ROS could also act against Umno for corruption.

“If you know of a crime but do not report it, you become an accomplice to the crime. The disciplinary board is not a replacement for the courts of law. It is not to provide Umno a managed alternative to legal justice,” said Tengku Razaleigh, who twice ran for party president but failed.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related Stories

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Ali Rustam, deputy president, MACC, money politics, Registrar of Societies, Tengku Razaleigh, Umno elections

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. tengku mohd faizal says

    March 19, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    Stop party polls? Ku Li must be joking, why stop? Better to tell him to ask Ali to ask the ROS to disband Umno altogether and declare Umno illegal, sack all members, since Umno’s disciplinary board has found so much political bribery.

Primary Sidebar

Search

Twitter

My Tweets

Recent Comments

  • Wave33 on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Adam on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • PSTan on The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Andre Lai on The Nut Graph stops publication

Recent News

  • The Nut Graph stops publication
  • Nasihat tentang sepupu yang mengganggu perasaan
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: The Sunni-Shia split and the answer to Muslim unity
  • Why Malaysia needs the national unity bills
  • Challenging government in the digital age: Lessons from Kidex
  • Najib’s failure
  • Babi, anjing, pondan: Jijik orang Islam Malaysia
  • Kidex and the law – What the government’s not telling you
  • Beyond Dyana Sofya
  • Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: Does Malaysia need hate speech laws?

Tags

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Anwar Ibrahim Barisan Nasional BN Bukit Selambau by-election dap Deborah Loh Ding Jo-Ann Election Commission elections Found in Malaysia Found in Quotation Gan Pei Ling government high court Hishammuddin Hussein ISA islam Jacqueline Ann Surin Khairy Jamaluddin KW Mak Lim Guan Eng Malaysia MCA Menteri Besar MP Watch Muhyiddin Yassin muslim Najib Razak Pakatan Rakyat Parliament Parti Keadilan Rakyat pas Penang Perak PKR police politics prime minister Selangor Shanon Shah Umno Wong Chin Huat Zedeck Siew

Footer

  • About The Nut Graph
  • Who Are We?
  • Our Contributors
  • Past Contributors
  • Guest Contributors
  • Editorial Policy
  • Comments & Columns
  • Copyright Policy
  • Web Accessibility Policy
  • Privacy Policy
The Nut Graph

© 2023 The Nut Graph