It’s about time we shake off every bit of “UMNO mentality” so that we can be accountable to the Malaysians who voted us in.
Parti Pribumi Bersatu Youth chief Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman has slammed party division heads who are soliciting contracts, a spillover unfortunately from UMNO.
I support him fully for we do not want money politics to set the tone for how things are done in Pakatan Harapan.
And I vehemently denounce the boycott against Syed Saddiq by division leaders who shamelessly argue that they lost everything when they left UMNO for Bersatu and hence it’s fine to use their power to solicit business deals.
The old-timers didn’t sacrifice their jobs and positions when they left UMNO. They left a sinking ship hoping to find similar opportunities in Bersatu.
We need to prove them wrong.
One of Pakatan Harapan’s rallying cry during the last elections is to weed out money politics and corruption. And we need to honour our words.
Do not get me wrong: it’s perfectly fine for these division heads to also be successful businesspeople. But they must go through an open process to acquire jobs and contracts.
As Syed Saddiq says, they cannot pull strings using their respective positions to get business opportunities.
This cannot be condoned. And if we turn a blind eye now, we are no better than UMNO.
How we deal with this issue is crucial as the people are watching our every move.
The Pakatan Harapan leaders must therefore throw their support behind Syed Saddiq at Thursday’s meeting to discuss this issue.
We need to support his warning to party members against the culture of seeking business contracts and positions.
Anything short of that will be a betrayal to the mandate given to Pakatan Harapan.