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Malaysia's ruling party in disarray over vote-buying
Associated Press - March 18, 2009
Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia's ruling party was in disarray Wednesday after an internal probe found a top leader and 10 officials guilty of vote-buying ahead of elections for office bearers.
The revelations on Tuesday exposed the depth of corruption and venality in the United Malays National Organization party, which had long been whispered about but were never admitted to or confronted openly.
"This will send a shock wave through the UMNO," Mohamad Mustafa Ishak, a political analyst at North Malaysia University said. "They just cannot simply ignore [problems in the part] by not taking any action at all."
The trigger for the internal investigation came when the party was trounced in last year's general elections at the hands of a disgruntled public, which showed leaders that after 51 years of uninterrupted power, their position was no longer guaranteed.
"The public perception is that the UMNO is that it is arrogant and has unhealthy practices. We have to clean up the UMNO," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said. "We have to change or be changed."
The UMNO disciplinary committee, which investigated 29 politicians, found a prominent politician, Mohamad Ali Rustam, guilty of violating party ethics and barred him from contesting the post of deputy-president.
The party will hold a vote March 24-28 to elect members to senior government positions. In the past, the party's deputy president has usually become the deputy prime minister.
Najib is standing unopposed for the post of party president, which will make him prime minister. He will replace Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The committee also suspended 10 senior party officials, including three of Mohamad Ali's aides, for up to three years.
Mohamad Ali said Wednesday that he will appeal the ruling. He has strong grass roots support, and his supporters are not likely to accept his ouster quietly, deepening party divisions.
Cracks were already becoming evident. Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the disciplinary committee's decision was ill-timed and could further destabilize the party.
"Action should have been taken before reaching the final hurdle," he said, suggesting Mohamad Ali and others should have been stopped before they were nominated for the posts.
The decision "will create a lot of undercurrents. And these undercurrents for UMNO in its present state is not healthy," he said.
Party members are also grumbling that Prime Minister Abdullah's son-in-law, Khairy Jamaulddin, was let off with a warning, even though he was found guilty of the same crime as Mohamad Ali.
Analysts say UMNO's action may be too little and too late to change the public perception.
"What they need most now is to have a proper, a total immunization of the party... a total transformation of the way the party elects its office bearers," said Mohamad Mustafa, the analyst.
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