KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been asked to probe a Facebook account that allegedly slandered Umno vice-president aspirant Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir and implicated party deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
Mukhriz was also accused in a news portal of sending out 1.2 million SMSes and giving out cash to bolster his chances in the VP race.
The Kedah Mentri Besar demanded that the news portal apologise and retract its article, which it did at about 10am yesterday.
In the meantime, Muhyiddin has asked the MCMC to investigate the FB account that used his name to slander Mukhriz.
The FB account that was created under Muhyiddin’s name had posted a so-called announcement that Mukhriz had been disqualified by the Umno disciplinary committee from contesting for the VP post as he had breached party ethics.
Mukhriz is alleged in the posting to be directly involved in the distribution of money during special programmes he had purportedly organised.
Put up at about 8.30am yesterday, it garnered 32 “likes” and 45 comments by 1.30pm.
“I did not issue such statement and I have requested the MCMC to investigate the account,” the Umno deputy president said in a short statement here yesterday.
In Jitra, Mukhriz questioned the timing of the accusation against him.
While he accepted the apology of the news portal, Mukhriz said: “The way the article came out a day before polling day for the party election has raised questions that the article was written with bad intention.”
In Putrajaya, Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor reiterated the party’s warning of severe disciplinary action, including expulsion, against those who sabotage the party polls.
– THE STAR
