Lawyer Syahredzan Johan said the Cameron Highlands Election Petition was about bribery, not about reimbursing volunteers, when referring to BN’s tweet drawing parallels between the two coalitions. — Picture by Zuraneeza Zulkifli

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 ― Barisan Nasional (BN) is disingenuous in likening Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) transport reimbursement to its volunteers for the Cameron Highlands polls next week, Syahredzan Johan said today.

The lawyer and political secretary to DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang emphasised that there is no comparison because the January 26 Cameron Highlands by-election was forced to be called, after an Election Court found BN guilty of paying the Orang Asli village chiefs in the constituency to vote for it.

“The Cameron Highlands Election Petition was about bribery, not about reimbursing volunteers,” he said in a statement, referring to the BN’s tweet yesterday drawing parallels between the two coalitions.

Jika dahulu, pemberian wang oleh ADUN BN untuk sukarelawan yang membantu ketika PRU dibatalkan kemenangannya, sekarang dah jelas lagi bersuluh mereka memberikan wang. Kenapa SPR senyap sahaja? Dimana keadilan?#BNBangkit#P078#PrkCameronHighlands pic.twitter.com/VdlFYoxMav — Barisan Nasional (@barisanasional) January 14, 2019

Syahredzan added that equating the payments to the Orang Asli batin with the RM20 paid by PH to each of its 60 campaign volunteers “is a disingenuous attempt to dilute or make light of the very serious offences which were found to have been committed during the 14th general election in P78”.

He highlighted that the previous BN candidate for Cameron Highlands, Datuk C. Sivarraajh, had not appealed against the Election Court’s decision, adding that the failure to challenge the findings was “damning” to the BN.

Syahredzan also pointed out that PH’s explanation of the travel reimbursement had been acknowledged by electoral watchdog Bersih 2.0 who said it was acceptable if PH listed the payment as part of its RM200,000 accounts to the Election Commission after the polls.