AN UMNO leader has claimed that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was reluctant to investigate and eradicate money politics allegedly festering the party when the latter was the party president in the 1990s since he himself was the “king of cronyism and nepotism”.

Umno Supreme Council member Puad Zarkashi, in a social media post on his Facebook yesterday, accused Dr Mahathir during his tenure as the prime minister of bailing out a shipping company belonging to his son, Mirzan, when the country was hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1998.

Puad was commenting on the statement made by the former prime minister during his interview in the latest episode of the Keluar Sekejap podcast, hosted by Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Sufian Hamdan on Monday.

“During the Keluar Sekejap podcast, Dr Mahathir told KJ (Khairy) that he did not instruct the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on purpose to investigate (the alleged) money politics in Umno.

“He did nothing to stop graft in the party,” he said.