Not just clean but BN candidates for this GE must be holy, says Ma’il

Oct 26: A divine 10 for Ismail Sabri, the caretaker Prime Minister, for his bold asssurance to the Malaysian electorate that his party’s candidates for the 15th general election will not just be clean but clearner than clean, holy even! 

Don’t laugh. Ismail actually said it: for the first time religious authorities will be engaged to help probe the background of those nominated by Barisan Nasional to stand on the Nov 19 polls. “Who knows, maybe there are candidates who got married (secretly) in Siam (Thailand). Or have failed to pay alimony or child support ..” he said. READ: BN candidates have to undergo vetting, including by Religious Dept

Traditionally, political parties will assure the people that they will vet their candidates with the help of PDRM, MACC, CID, BNM, EC and some other short-forms that authorities in this country love to use but never the religious authorities. Ismail has risen the bar to heavenly heights!

Thing is, with all the vetting that they had done on one another through the years, corruption and wrong-doing involving politicians continued almost unabated. And the amount of money involved has risen from paltry millions to billions. 

So a word of caution to my fellow voters: Don’t get your hopes too high with this “religious authorities vetting” promise. 

It’s safer to assume the caretaker PM’s statement as an attempt to try and justify the huge allocation that his government was proposing to give to JAKIM and Co in the national Budget 2023 tabled by the Finance Minister just before the dissolution of Parliament the other day.