There were claims that the GE15 election held in the state of Terengganu was linked to vote buying and masked as a charity drive by PAS. Charity or not, it is still corruption as stated in section 10 of the Election Offences Act 1954 and is being investigated by MACC. A substantial amount of cash which was said to be close to RM600 was handed out as ‘Sedekah or alms for reasons with ambiguities right in the midst of GE15. Terengganu voters may have been waylaid of their constitutional rights and temporarily deluded into offering their votes in a gesture of loyalty toward Islam.
Video footage of the charity or Sedekah drive as evidence was not denied but further reinforced by Hadi Awang in a tweeter thread tweeting that nothing was wrong in offering ‘Sedekah’. Coming to the rescue, Hamzah Zainudin twisted the logic of the intended bribe for votes as an act of a divine sense of philanthropy. The Sedekah was an aid to victims of flood and students going back to school. (NST)
Neither reason made any sense because the flood was a month after the GE 15 and the academic year began in March not even close to when the Sedekah was offered. The other matter of deciding the "Sedekah" offering was that it was not in accordance with the National Fatwa Council which decided on such matters. So why was such a generous handout or Sedekah drive exercised just before voting if not for fishing for votes? This was again rebutted by Hamzah saying that the Fatwa Council could not be expected to be consulted during every election. (NST) Hadi Awang after his confession tweet with bungled reasons distanced himself and his party from the Sedekah claim by saying that it was others not from PAS that were involved therefore no election law was breached.
Hadi Awang’s sudden u-turn to what he had confessed via his tweet clearly shows that a religious person in politics is no different from being an ordinary dirty politician using poly tricks to play the people. The credibility of the green wave of PAS has been tainted by the visible act of vote buying affecting many more constituencies all over the country other than just the 3 caught in the act.
It was now up to the MACC to show their effectiveness in handling the matters as any form of gifts for gain without spelling out clear reasons is construed as an act of bribery. This may be hot news for now but after time it may all be swept under the carpet as those other cases which are only collecting dust in cyberspace.
This act of charity or rather the Hamzah interpretation has lost its original meaning and has become a vicious tentacle of money politics, an evil stranglehold of the devil over good practices. To add to this, it is a shame that a religious party has the audacity to practise such evil to stay relevant in politics.
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