KUALA LUMPUR: Terengganu Pakatan Harapan (PH) chairman, Datuk Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad yesterday (Jan 23) claimed that 'sedekah' (charity) from RM300 to RM600 was offered to voters in the state.
He claimed that the cash handouts given to Terengganu voters during the 15th General Election (GE15) seemed unusually large.
Raja Kamarul further said the public had also started making various assumptions due to the hundreds of billions of ringgit in government funds that were taken out during the Covid-19 pandemic but could not be accounted for.
"The police report made by Terengganu Umno, led by its communications chairman Datuk Ahmad Said, about widespread corruption during GE15 in the state is not surprising to us in Pakatan Harapan.
"What surprised us was Pas' involvement. They've been branding themselves as Islamic champions (pejuang Islam) but the group was widely associated with the incident.
"Video clips of certain parties providing money to voters in exchange for promises of a 'pledge' to support a particular party have been circulated, further reinforcing the allegations.
"One of the things that surprised us was the Pas president's statement that there is nothing wrong with giving 'sedakah' during the GE15 campaign period," he wrote on a Twitter thread.
Raja Kamarul added that Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang's logic regarding the "charity" cash handouts was misguided because only the National Fatwa Council could determine matters regarding the intention of charity.
He said that former deputy chairman of the Election Commission, Datuk Wan Ahmad, had stated that giving money during the GE campaign was a "bribe" and an act of "buying votes", while Perikatan Nasional (PN) secretary-general Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin said that whether or not the act of giving money was wrong depends on the "intention" associated with the act.
"If Hadi described the giving of cash as 'sedekah' and Hamzah said it depends on the 'intention', it seems that this rather misguided logic depends on the 'intention' which only the National Fatwa Council can determine. But one can't expect the National Fatwa Council to be on duty every election," he said.
He also disputed the timeline of the "generous parties" choosing to give alms in November, which was during the election campaign season.
"Isn't the time when people need 'sedekah' before school reopens and the new school year starts in March 2023 and not November 2022?
"Charity was also needed after the floods hit Terengganu which happened in mid-December and not earlier in early November when 'sedekah' was widely given to voters.
"The PN government claims that they are a clean and perfect government, as if they are innocent, but why is bribery so rampant as never seen before in Terengganu in GE15? What is the real 'intention' of this 'charity'?"
Hadi had on Saturday said those caught on video handing out money to voters in three Terengganu constituencies during GE15 were just ordinary people giving out charity.
The Marang member of parliament said there was nothing wrong with such an act as electoral laws stated that only candidates and their representatives were not allowed to give any form of handout.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki, however, said Pas leaders could describe the act of giving cash handouts during the GE15 campaign period any way they want, but the graftbusters were investigating it as potential vote-buying.
He said it did not matter if they used terms like sedekah, as it was still corruption as defined under Section 10 of the Election Offences Act 1954.