Zaid Ibrahim today refuted the allegation that he had lobbied for Selangor state land on behalf of "clients".

Instead, the former de facto law minister said his emails exposed by PKR director of strategy Rafizi Ramli were just "normal" work which is part and parcel of a politician's life.

Zaid said the emails were sent as some people approached him for help and he received no payment for contacting Rafizi ( left ), who was then chief executive officer at the Selangor Economic Advisor's Office.

He referred to them as "clients" as they had previously been serviced by his law firm Zaid Ibrahim and Co which he had sold off by 2010.

He claimed that the companies already owned the land and had faced problems in obtaining development approval.

This is contrary to Rafizi's reply to him in 2010, which stated that the land in Batu and Petaling Jaya belonged to state entities.

"This is not lobbying work. It is something normal," said Zaid, adding that he was only helping to put these people in touch with the state.

"People asked me to write support letters all the time and I write them by saying 'please consider this candidate if it is found to be reasonable'.

"When I was Kota Baru MP, even teachers came to me to get a raise and I write these letters," he added.

'Dirty politics'

Zaid said that if he truly wanted to lobby for projects or land, then he would go straight to Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim instead of Rafizi, who was then just PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim's "office boy".

Clearly annoyed with the "expose", Zaid derided Rafizi further as a "black-hearted" person who thinks he is now a "hero" after the National Feedlot Corporation expose.

"But this is Zaid... He should dig harder if he wants to really do an expose," he said, adding that his integrity is beyond reproach.

He also snidely dismissed Rafizi as a student of Anwar's politics and a "graduate" of the reformasi movement, which he said was filled with "dirty politics".

Zaid said even though he was also in the cabinet, he was unlike Anwar who was incarcerated for abuse of power and was exposed in 1998 as having a long list of corporate cronies.

"Rafizi says this (lobbying) is Umno culture... No, this is actually Anwar's culture," he said.

He also questioned why Rafizi had even replied to him, instead of hauling him up for improper conduct, if he thought Zaid had acted unethically.

In response to Zaid's attack on PKR's integrity, Rafizi yesterday exposed a series of emails sent to him by Zaid, who was then with PKR.

He said the emails showed that Zaid lobbied for state land in Batu and Petaling Jaya.

Rafizi had in 2010 replied to Zaid that the Batu land has been awarded to Selangor State Development Corporation (PKNS) while the Petaling Jaya land is state land partially owned by the Selangor Islamic Affairs Council (Mais).

"The state's approach will be to invite a request for proposal and to evaluate the proposals on financial and technical criteria...," Rafizi, who is now Pandan MP, had wrote.