Muhyiddin’s deafening silence over vote-buying claims

Muhyiddin’s deafening silence over vote-buying claims



From Clement Stanley

I find the silence from Muhyiddin Yassin over the issue of alleged vote-buying by PAS in Maran, Kuala Terengganu and Kemaman extremely odd and annoying.

Surely as the big boss of Perikatan Nasional, of which PAS is a member, he ought to come to the Islamic party’s defence or have an opinion about this issue.

Instead, it is Hamzah Zainudin who has stepped up to defend PAS. Why is that?

Could it be that Muhyiddin is totally unaware of what was going on or, worse, he has been stunned into silence upon learning about the issue?

Whatever it is, we have heard the views of Anwar Ibrahim, the chairman of Pakatan Harapan, and we have heard from Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who leads both Umno and Barisan Nasional, but we have yet to hear anything from the leader of PN.

And yet even before the Election Commission announced the official results, both Muhyiddin and Abdul Hadi Awang declared PN had won GE15.

I am sure those following the election results that night would have been asking the same question I did: How is it possible to declare victory when there was no clear winner?

This issue of doling out cash before and during election time isn’t going to go away that easily. Hadi came up with a story that it was not PAS that was drowning the voters in money and that the money actually came from a generous public.

Funny how even the people living in rich states such as Selangor and Penang didn’t step forward to be so generous to their fellow Malaysians.

Giving out alms before and during the election period is nothing to be suspicious about? Really? There are 365 days in one year. How convenient it is that alms are given out during this time.

While the matter remains under investigation by the appropriate authorities, the outcome of these investigations will have a profound effect on the nation one way or the other.

Either this could lead to by-elections or we will see more generous and caring Malaysians emerging before and during an election.

Should the matter ever come before the courts, it would be interesting to see if the learned judges can be persuaded into accepting such unbelievable reasons.

You might be tempted to think that the majority of people will believe such reasons, but as Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time”.

It is time for the PN chairman to say something about this issue lest we come to the conclusion that it wasn’t really the “green wave” that swept PN to power in Perlis, Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan, but what was “waved” at the voters.