Opposition parties now in govt 'lost roots', embraced money politics: MP

Summary

• PKR MP Wong Chen says former opposition parties now forming the government have ‘scarily’ changed their culture to side with money politics.

• He says the party elections for DAP and PKR are evidence of a ‘rotten political culture’.

• He questions where PKR figures got the money to hold events in hotels instead of ceramahs at ‘pondok’.

Opposition parties that now find themselves part of the government appear to have “lost their roots” and embraced money politics, said government backbencher Wong Chen.

Speaking at an event in Kuala Lumpur, the PKR lawmaker said a “rotten political culture” can be observed in the recent party polls of Pakatan Harapan component members.

He reminisced on how PKR’s operations, in particular, seem to have strayed from its original methods as a party which has consistently claimed to lack funding.

“We have a rotten political culture, and money politics has surfaced, as you can see during the election period for DAP and PKR,” Wong said in his speech.

“Back in the old days when I first joined PKR, we would hold our ceramahs at a pondok (shack) or in a coffee shop. Nowadays, it’s being done in hotels.

“Where does all this money come from? I don’t know. My money is enough to support my family, (but) not my political career,” he added.

Scary situation

Describing the situation as “scary”, the Subang MP said the reality is that opposition-turned-government parties are now adopting political cultures it had previously attempted to distance itself from.

“We’ve all sort of lost our roots. We are all (hosting) events in fancy places, (to the point where) our supporters are expecting it,” he added.

Wong was addressing an audience at the launch of political economist and activist Edmund Terence Gomez’s book titled “Misgovernance: Grand Corruption in Malaysia”.

Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4 Center) jointly organised the event with the Coalition for Business Integrity.

Limited resources

Recently, incumbent PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli asserted that the party lacks the financial resources for him to cater to grassroots members.

The economy minister was hitting back at the party’s deputy information chief R Ramanan, who had criticised certain PKR leaders for becoming increasingly inaccessible after assuming high-ranking positions.

“Taking care of the grassroots, like Ramanan said, is money politics. I don’t manage the party like that. If I wanted to do that (give money, distribute hampers), I’d join another party,” he said.

Rafizi also claimed that some candidates running for the PKR Women chief post had spent hundreds of thousands of ringgit on purchasing scarves, which were believed to be distributed to delegates.

He added that the practice of taking care of the grassroots by giving money deviates from PKR’s original values.

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