PKR: No help wanted with vetting polls candidates

PKR has snubbed the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) offer to help vet potential election candidates.

"(The choice of) candidate is the prerogative of the party and is part of our strategy. If we disclose, for all you know, the MACC will charge all of them for corruption and we will not have any candidates left,” strategy director Rafizi Ramli told a press conference today.

Even within the political party, he said, the final candidate is not known until a "certain period of time".

Last Thursday,  MACC deputy chief commissioner Mohd Shukri Abdull had in a New Straits Times report offered party chiefs the opportunity to submit written requests for vetting their candidates.

He had guaranteed that requests would be kept confidential and the screening and findings submitted to only the respective party leaders.

Describing the offer as "ludicrous", Rafizi said the agency should instead solve high-profile corruption cases that still plague the country.

"The MACC should focus on wrapping up on major scandals. To date, I have not heard anything about the National Feedlot Corporation scandal (from MACC)," he said.

"It is up to each political party's initiative to prove to the rakyat that we have vetted our candidates through a process that has integrity and is according to international standards."

He added that the party leadership may also require its candidates to declare their assets when their status is finalised closer to the election.