Former Kedah Umno chief Mukhriz Mahathir has pleaded ignorance of data firm Cambridge Analytica’s (CA) activities in the state during the 13th general election.

This is despite Mukhriz heading BN’s election campaign in Kedah at the time, which CA featured on its website as among the case studies of its work.

“I never knew CA nor ever engaged them to do any work. If they claim to have been involved with Kedah in GE13, I was not aware of it.

“None of the strategies and tactics I employed as head of elections for Kedah BN during GE13 were in any way derived from advice from CA. Perhaps they were consulting with the Prime Minister’s Office or BN’s headquarters,” Mukhriz told Malaysiakini in a text message today.

Mukhriz - who is now Bersatu’s deputy president - said he does know Azrin Zizal, who is the Southeast Asia head of CA’s sister company SCL Group.

However, he said, this does not mean that Azrin was employed by SCL at the same time, as his employment then was under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti).

“If he says that he was their employee even during his employment with me, then that would be a misrepresentation. He only worked for me between 2009-2013 when I was in Miti. I did not extend his employment when I moved to become Kedah menteri besar,” Mukhriz said.

At that time Azrin was Mukhriz’s press officer.

CA on its website claimed that it had supported BN’s election campaign in Kedah with a “targeted messaging campaign” to highlight school improvements since 2008.

It pointed out that BN subsequently won a landslide victory in the state, winning 21 out of 36 state seats and 10 out of 15 parliamentary seats.

The company came under scrutiny recently for alleged unethical practices in data mining and election campaigning, particularly in the US presidential election campaign of 2016.

However, an undercover video by UK’s Channel 4 showed CA Political’s managing director Mark Turnbull admitting that the company had operated in Malaysia.

While not revealing details of its involvement in Malaysia, Turnbull said the company’s job was to discover and target its audience’s deep-rooted fears.

He denied that the company engaged in deceit during the recorded meeting, but CA chief executive Alexander Nix (photo above) was caught on video at a later meeting, where Turnbull was present, with Nix describing the company’s entrapment strategies.

This included secretly filming one of its operatives bribing politicians, or sending girls to their homes.

CA subsequently denounced Channel 4’s report as a “gross misrepresentation” of the conversation and the company’s business.

Additional reporting by Norman Goh

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