In a potential blow to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's election campaign, authorities have detained two men after Malaysia's opposition claimed they tried to bribe one of its candidates into withdrawing from Sunday's polls.
Abdullah has campaigned as a corruption fighter ahead of the polls for Parliament and state assemblies, seeking his own mandate after being handed power Oct. 31 when long-time leader Mahathir Mohamad retired.
"I am shocked and angry," Abdullah said.
"Let the Anti-Corruption Agency investigate. They are independent," he said.
Malaysia has a long history of money politics, but Abdullah has capitalized on his image as an honest politician and is running on a reform platform. The detentions were the first arrests for corruption during the current election campaign.
The Anti-Corruption Agency, which was moribund before Abdullah took office, has confirmed that two men were detained for questioning amid allegations of trying to bribe a candidate into quitting the state assembly race in Johor.
The candidate, Sanip Ithnin, belongs to the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the principal challenger to Abdullah's United Malays National Organization for the votes of the country's ethnic Malay Muslim majority. Johor is a southern stronghold of Abdullah's party.
The secular National Front coalition that includes UMNO is all but certain to maintain a two-thirds parliamentary majority. The opposition is hammering at the Front as corrupt and un-Islamic and hopes to take power in a third state in Malaysia's rural north.
The Islamic party said it mounted a private sting operation, seizing the two men as they came to Sanip Ithnin's home with a bribe to quite the race. They brought 5,000 ringgit (US$1,315) with them, a 10-percent down payment on the bribe.
"This is a slap for Abdullah's Mr. Clean image," said Nasaruddin Isa, secretary general of the Islamic party.
"We want stern action to be taken. The authorities must probe who are the high-level UMNO officials behind it," he said.
The fundamentalists claimed that the two men admitted to being UMNO members, but ruling party officials quickly distanced the party from the scandal.
Allegations about money politics have swirled in Johor since an Islamic party candidate withdrew from the election just hours before a deadline for nominations Saturday, paving the way for Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar to be automatically elected unopposed.
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