BERSATU Supreme Council member Dr Muhammad Faiz Na’aman has denied that he is out to sabotage his party following his criticism of the candidates selected to contest in Selangor in the forthcoming state polls on Aug 12.
Faiz said he was merely voicing out the concerns of the party’s grassroots and divisions who were unhappy with the candidates whom they considered were up to certain “shenanigans”.
“I’m not going against the party, but the issue here is the ones who made the decision (on the candidates). I’m just representing several of the nine division chiefs who are unsatisfied with this,” he was reported as saying by Utusan Malaysia.
“This group of people have been with the party and division since its inception but yet, not a single one of them were chosen as candidates as the party prefers to bring in ‘imported’ candidates and fresh faces.”
He further lamented that in Selangor, representatives from Bersatu’s Armada wing were not even nominated as candidates in the state polls.
On Tuesday (Aug 1), the Bersatu leader was accused of sabotaging his party and Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) campaign efforts due to his comments.
However, he asserted that it is his duty as a Bersatu Supreme Council member to champion the voices of the party’s division chiefs and youth leaders from Selangor.
In a separate Utusan Malaysia report, Faiz pointed out that the main reason for his discontentment was because Bersatu was willing to nominate candidates who had previously lost in last November’s general election.
He said that among the candidates considered ineligible because the people in Selangor had rejected them in GE15 were Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali (Gombak), Datuk Seri Rina Harun (Sepang), Sasha Lyna Abdul Latiff (Ampang) and Dr Afif Bahardin (Shah Alam).
The same people have now been named as PN’s candidates for the state seats of Hulu Kelang, Batu Tiga, Bukit Antarabangsa and Taman Medan respectively, he added.
Faiz further noted that there are also cases where PN candidates were not from any party but from NGOs, were former gangsters, or former officials and questioned why they were nominated when they had never served in Bersatu before.
Selangor has 56 state seats and PN is contesting all of them. Bersatu is fielding 21 candidates, PAS (17), Gerakan (eight) and Bersatu’s allied wing (10). – Aug 3, 2023
Main pic credit: Malaysiakini
