Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) wants the Election Commission to investigate Umno and its leaders for money politics in connection with a statutory declaration made by its youth exco member Zool Hilmi Yahya on Feb 11.

"The statement made by Zool Hilmi relates to a serious misconduct as it involves money politics and a high profile leader - the deputy prime minister Najib Abdul Razak," Keadilan youth leader Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor told reporters after lodging a formal complaint to the EC today.

"We want the commission to look into the matter so that the people can be assured of a clean election," he said.

Ezam submitted the complaint to the Selangor EC office in Shah Alam. It was received by an officer who promised to relay the complaint to his superior.

Asked if the commission has the jurisdiction to act on his complaint, Ezam said that there was no reason for it (the commission) to shirk from its responsibilities.

"The issues here are about politicians in Umno and Keadilan who are expected to challenge each other and giving of money. Thus, the EC should investigate the matter as such issues are within their jurisdiction to probe and act," he reasoned.

Stacks of RM100 notes

In his declaration, Zool Hilmi said he went to Najib's house in Kuala Lumpur at 9pm on Feb10, with a group of Keadilan leaders including Hamdan Taha, Muhammad Zahid, Hanafiah Man and Negri Sembilan chief Ruslan Kassim to discuss their intention to join Umno

He added that the meeting ended at 11pm and as he was leaving the deputy premier's house, two men referred to only as ''Datuk'' handed him about RM1,000.

Later at the hotel where he was staying with the other Keadilan leaders, Zool Hilmi claimed that he was given several stacks of RM100 notes amounting to RM25,000.

A police report was lodged by Hamdan, Zahid and Hanfiah against Zool Hilmi for alleged slander claiming that they were never paid to join Umno.

Commenting on the police report, Ezam said that while he welcomed police investigations into the matter, there is little reason for him to believe that the police would act fairly on the matter.

"Over the past years, we have lodged scores of police reports against Umno politicians for various offences including slander but to date no action has been taken. But in Zool Hilmi's case, the police contacted Zool Hilmi's father only three hours after the report was lodged. So dare we have faith in the police?" he posed.