RPK: There is corruption in Selangor

RK Ahmad

The controversial blogger, who claims that he is trying to save Pakatan Rakyat, vows to reveal proof and hopes that Anwar Ibrahim will act on the matter.

PETALING JAYA: Controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin has alleged that there is corruption in the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor government and vowed to disclose the evidence.

Following this, he expressed hope that the opposition bloc’s leader Anwar Ibrahim would act on the matter even if it meant that the heads of his close associates had to roll.

When his complaints fell on deaf ears, Raja Petra told FMT that he was forced to turn to the pro-government mainstream media to drive home the point.

“And boy, did we shake them up,” stressed the blogger, who earned fame by rattling the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition via the alternative media.

However, Raja Petra said that instead of acknowledging the problem and promising to rectify it, Pakatan chose to discredit him.

“Their reaction was ‘he has been bought, he is working for Umno’… if the best they can do is (to accuse me) of ‘mala fide’ (and) that I am out to kill Pakatan rather than save Pakatan, which is what I am trying to do, then I have to take this to the next step,” he added.

The next step, he explained, would be to furnish the evidence since Pakatan leaders had urged him to do so instead of hurling allegations.

“Sometimes, be careful what you wish for. But since this is a challenge, and people have said ‘unless you can prove your allegations with evidence, we are not going to take notice of you’…fine. This is what you want, it is not what I want, I will do what you want.



“After this (when the evidence is revealed), I hope the effect will be… that Anwar will grab the bull by the horns. And even if he has to cut off the heads of the people he loves, he will do so,” he added.

Raja Petra warned that if Anwar chose to shield those responsible, then he should be prepared to face the consequence of Pakatan losing Selangor.

Earlier, the blogger said that when he met the opposition leader in London in 2010, he had told the latter about the alleged corruption in Selangor but nothing was done about it.

Raja Petra claimed that he was alerted about the matter a year earlier by one of his whistleblowers, who was supposed to compile the evidence.

He also made a startling allegation that this whistleblower was murdered two weeks later but declined to elaborate on the incident.

“That’s another story, which we will talk about another time,” he said.

‘Umno sharks smell blood’

Meanwhile, Raja Petra also claimed that certain Pakatan politicians in Selangor had solicited funds from businessmen for their electoral war chest.

“These people (the businessmen) are doing business in Selangor, they need approvals, they need help from the state government. Would these people dare say ‘no’? Or (say) that they think this is unethical?

“Of course they would have to give, because if they don’t give, they would be in trouble. One person had refused to give and his project is in trouble now, he can’t get the approval,” he added.

Raja Petra stressed that these issues must be brought into the open and hopefully Pakatan would act to prove to the voters in Selangor that it was serious about combating corruption.

“It worries me when people who voted Pakatan in 2008, today tell me ‘Pakatan, BN all the same, both also corrupted’. This is not a good sign,” he said, adding that the voice of discontent was growing in numbers, including among those close to Pakatan and its leaders.

The blogger said that Pakatan faced a genuine risk of losing Selangor and this had even prompted a power struggle in Umno, with regard to who should be the next menteri besar if BN captured the state.

“These are like sharks, which smell the blood…,” he said, adding that the sharks in Umno had picked up the scent because they could sense that Pakatan might be “ripped to pieces” in the next polls.

Raja Petra said that if Pakatan wanted to wait until after the election to rectify the problem, then it would be too late just like what happened in Perak.

“Do we want to wait until Selangor is also lost?” he asked.

Selangor government: Show us the evidence

Raja Petra first highlighted that corruption was still rampant in Selangor as it has been under the Barisan Nasional rule in a series of interviews with the mainstream media in January.

The state government then reacted angrily by stating that Raja Petra was making wild accusations to undermine it.

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim’s political secretary Faekah Husin had also offered to pay travel fare for Raja Petra to come to state secretariat to provide more information on his claims.

Responding to his interview to FMT today, Faekah reiterated the state government’s stand that it was willing to investigate the claims if Raja Petra would show evidence of corruption.

“This is the second time he has made such sweeping claims. He should furnish evidence on his claims. Or he should go to the MACC with the evidence,” she told FMT today.