BARISAN Nasional (BN) candidates who win in the Malacca elections will no longer jump ship as the party has tied them to three contractual agreements, BN elections director Mohamad Hasan said. 
 
The Umno deputy president said candidates who fail to adhere and defy the agreements will need to pay a hefty penalty, which he did not reveal. 
 
“BN candidates who are contesting in the upcoming Malacca elections have already made a commitment. There are (actually) three commitments – the first is a signed statutory declaration, the second is an agreement that the candidate applied to use BN symbol and the third is to use BN facilities.

He said the party has set hefty fines in the agreements if any of the winners jump ship.
 
“(The amount is) not that little. They have to pay millions. I don’t want to say (the amount) here but if the court wants to determine how much he pays, that is up to the court.” Mohamad, fondly known as Tok Mat, warned in an interview titled Premier Discussion, which he attended with BN’s Malacca chief ministerial candidate Sulaiman Md Ali.

Mohamad said they have done everything to ensure the BN candidates do not betray the mandate of the people. 
 
He said that if BN won the state election with a two-thirds majority, the party will bring a motion to amend the state’s constitution and put in place an anti-hopping law.
 
Mohamad called on Pakatan Harapan (PH) to also walk the talk on this issue and support them if the motion is brought to the legislative assembly. 
 
He said PH should not go against its policy of accepting defectors, which he claimed it had done in the Malacca elections. 
 
“At that time, I hope PH doesn’t oppose the proposal. If they object, then they are swallowing their own words.
 
“Because they are the one who championed and objected to hopping but now suddenly they also have a term for those who jump, i.e. a “principled frog”.
 
“Now they have all these terms of principled and unprincipled frogs,” he said. 
 
The PH has accepted former chief minister Idris Haron and former Pantai Kundor assemblyman Nor Azman Hassan into its ranks.
 
Idris is contesting in Asahan while Nor Azman is defending his Pantai Kundor seat.
 
Malacca will go to the polls on Saturday. PH won the state in the last general election but the state government collapsed following defections that allowed an Umno-led government to take over.

However, that state government was also ousted after four assemblymen, including two from Umno, pulled their support for chief minister Sulaiman Md Ali. – November 17, 2021.