Johor PAS deputy commissioner Dzulkefly Ahmad said he had made to the police in Labis today a “straightforward, open-and-shut case” of a senior civil servant openly campaigning for BN in the run-up to the Tenang by-election scheduled for Jan 30.

Dzulkefly was called for an interview by a police inspector in the afternoon after he had lodged a report in the morning, backed up with video evidence of Johor Education Department director Markom Giran openly canvassing support for BN among teachers.

NONE “The inspector wanted to know from whom I had obtained the footage,” said Dzulkefly ( left ) to Malaysiakini shortly after he emerged from the interview.

“Of course, my reply was ‘No comment’,” he chortled.

“This is a straightforward, open-and-shut case of a senior civil servant breaching the rules against participation in the political process,” he remarked.

Dzulkefly claimed Markom was in the TG54 category of the civil service, a placement explicitly barred from participation in politics.

He said the General Orders (Chapter D) contains the provisions barring holders of TG54 posts from taking part in politics.

“This case goes to the fundamentals of democracy, one pillar of which is civil service neutrality in the political process,” he asserted.

NONE In the police report, Dzulkefly listed five schools in the Tenang constituency visited by Markom over the one past week.

The five-minute video shows Markom, at one of the meetings, urging teachers to campaign for BN in the Tenang by-election.

He said there are 15 schools in the Tenang constituency and the Education Department plans to organise motivational programme for pupils in which all teachers are requested to meet with the students’ parents.

"In meeting the parents and the house occupants, you shall classify them based on four colours - green, blue, grey and white. Green is for hardcore opposition, blue for BN.

“For grey (fence-sitters), we want you to inform us so that we can try to change them to blue," he said.

‘Flagrant misuse of gov’t machinery’

Dzulkefly lambasted Umno-BN for what he described as “flagrant misuse of government machinery and personnel for partisan political purpose.”

NONE “They have gotten away all this while with this abuse and have not been called to account. Now we have made a straightforward case. Let’s see how they wriggle out of this one,” said Dzulkefly, one of Johor PAS’ highly educated set of leaders.

He claimed that Umno-BN were unabashed in their misuse of information and education departments’ machinery and personnel.

This, he said, was in addition to their misuse of government agencies’ - Felda and Kemas - facilities for partisan campaigning.

“They could not be bothered about what is properly the state’s and what is theirs,” cracked Dzulkefly.

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