KUALA LUMPUR, July 21 — Universiti Malaya (UM) academic Professor Edmund Terence Gomez has observed that money politics within political parties have spread out and affected national level politics in the past two general elections.

Gomez said that Umno’s money politics culture, which began during the battle for the party’s deputy presidency in 1981 between Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Tun Musa Hitam, started seeping obscenely into mainstream politics in the 13th general elections.

“In 2013, we saw one of the most monetised elections ever. Even Opposition leaders on the ground complained when I visited all the states. Opposition leaders were so upset because so much money was out there in the mainstream — where is this money coming from?

“This is important because before this, money politics was within the parties. Money politics from internal party elections had seeped into national arena. The volume of money was stupendous and (there is) no clue where the money came from. The money was flowing into the campaign period.

“Two years later, when the 1MDB (1Malaysia Development Berhad) scandal was exposed, the RM2.6 billion that went to then prime minister’s (Datuk Seri Najib Razak) account was also exposed. And he said ‘I used the money for the 2013 elections’,” Gomez said at a forum organised by non-profit G25 on political financing reform.

Another worrying aspect he observed was that money politics had even been institutionalised into the form of the Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) government cash aid, adding that it was a public policy to transfer cash to the poor.

“As much as we concur with the value of the project, there were other issues involved. Tun Dr Mahathir said it well when he used the term: ‘Cash is King’. Since we didn’t deal with the reforms on political financing, money politics has taken a new form.

“It has become part and parcel of how public policies created and implemented. It’s not just about financing of parties but (involves a bigger) issue in how we shape our politics and policies,” he said.

Furthermore, he said that if Umno does not change its culture of practising money politics, it will probably see the end of its days in the next five years.

The Universiti Malaya Economics & Administration Faculty political professor observed that money was still being used to obtain positions in the recently concluded Umno party elections, which saw party reformist Khairy Jamaluddin losing the presidential race to Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

“In the Umno party election, it was very clear that money was used and the consequence of money being used was this: This was the party that lost power.

“First thing you do when losing an election is (to) reform, rebuild and then come back to power. Other parties who were in power had done it. This happened in Taiwan when a ruling party lost power after years of continuous rule but managed to reform and return to power.

“In this party however, instead of new blood, the warlords still came back to power. Politics have not changed in spite of Umno losing out,” said Gomez, adding that it was important for internal party reforms to occur to stem the tide of money politics.