KUALA LUMPUR - Two members of the party led by Malaysia’s former premier Muhyiddin Yassin were charged on Tuesday with corruption and solicitation totalling at least RM7.4 million (S$2.23 million), and are purportedly set to face new charges related to the Jana Wibawa initiative on Wednesday.

Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) information chief Wan Saiful Wan Jan on Tuesday claimed trial to two charges, which were read out at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court before Judge Azura Alwi. One charge is over allegedly accepting RM6.9 million in bribes from a firm in relation to the Jana Wibawa initiative. The second charge the Tasek Gelugor MP faces is over allegedly soliciting from the same firm an unspecified amount for a road project worth RM232 million under the same initiative.

Jana Wibawa was a programme to help bumiputera, or Malay-Muslim, contractors during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was conceived by former finance minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz, who is now International Trade and Industry Minister.

The initiative became embroiled in controversy after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said costs were too high for some projects and that some of them had been approved without going through a tender process.

On Tuesday, Judge Azura set bail at RM400,000 for all the charges and ordered Wan Saiful to surrender his passport and report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters every two months until the case concludes.

If convicted, the accused faces up to 20 years’ jail and a fine of no less than five times the amount of gratification, or RM10,000, whichever is higher.

Among Bersatu top guns who were in the courtroom were Tan Sri Muhyiddin, its president, and opposition leader Hamzah Zainudin.

Adam Radlan Adam Muhammad, who is also Segambut Bersatu division deputy chief, was charged in a separate courtroom over allegedly soliciting 3.5 per cent to 7 per cent of the overall worth of a project linked to the Jana Wibawa programme from a managing director of a contracting firm, MIE Infrastructure and Energy, and receiving RM500,000 in bribes from the same man.

In response to the charges, Mr Muhyiddin said a “selective prosecution” is being carried out against the Bersatu leadership, claiming that Umno president Zahid Hamidi had “hinted at it”.

“I feel sad because this is the first time Bersatu has been taken to court. If you remember the statement made by the Umno president, he said there will be a new court cluster. That is like something planned from the beginning,” he told reporters outside court.

“As Bersatu president, I think this is planned. The intentions are definitely not good, and we have filed a police report on Feb 15 on 11 matters, which I think are quite serious, related to the current government.”

Wan Saiful said in a press conference: “The charges against me are just the government’s way of diverting attention from their failure. They’re trying to cover it up with a non-existent case.”

On Monday, he was summoned to the MACC, where he was held for the night to be taken to court on Tuesday, while Adam was asked to be present in court.

A source familiar with Adam’s case told The Straits Times on Tuesday that Adam will face new charges related to Jana Wibawa at the Shah Alam High Court on Wednesday.

Adam’s new charges are related to him allegedly soliciting and accepting two bribes of RM2 million and RM2.1 million linked to the programme.

The source said: “These new charges of Mr Adam involve different transactions involving different parties. The charges would be read out at Shah Alam High Court because the alleged crimes were committed in Selangor.”

Adam is also a council member of the Tan Sri Muhyiddin Charity Golf Foundation.

In the course of investigating allegations that Bersatu had received funds from contractors chosen for the Jana Wibawa programme during Mr Muhyiddin’s tenure, the MACC froze the party’s accounts.

Last Thursday, Mr Muhyiddin was called in by the MACC for questioning over the Jana Wibawa case. But he said on Sunday that he was there as a witness, not a suspect.

He said he was clueless as to why he had become the target of such accusations, and vowed legal action against those who insinuate that he is corrupt.

He reiterated that he did not take a single cent from the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines during his tenure as prime minister from March 2020 to August 2021. Datuk Seri Anwar had earlier commented on irregularities discovered in the procurement of the vaccines. This will be among issues included in a White Paper to be tabled by Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa in the Parliament in the middle of 2023.

In a separate update, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said said Jana Wibawa involved 56 projects that were issued letters of acceptance, for a total project value of RM6.3 billion. She said a few of these letters of acceptance involved family members of top leaders from a “certain political party”.

If the allegations are convincingly backed by evidence during the trial, some political observers believe the Muhyiddin-led Perikatan Nasional (PN) would lose its moral high ground and any backing for claiming to be a “clean and stable” alternative to Umno.

Professor Wong Chin Huat, a political scientist at Sunway University, told ST: “At best, PN can try to sling mud on Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN), hoping to convince the middle-ground voters – especially ethnic Malays – that all parties are equally dirty; but it would lose the commanding appeal to swing anti-establishment voters.

“However, should the case be handled poorly by the prosecution or some case of corruption implicating PH or BN get let off by the Attorney-General’s Chambers, this would be widely perceived to be a political witch-hunt. Then sympathy votes would swing towards PN. The second possibility is what PN is hoping for.”

Professor James Chin from the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania said it would be a double-edged sword for both parties to use the graft charges levelled upon their leaders in the upcoming state elections.

Malaysia is expected to hold state elections in six states in 2023.

“BN will play up Bersatu’s alleged corruption, but since the trial has not concluded yet, it’s difficult for them to use it as a weapon as PN, too, can use Zahid’s graft charges when they campaign,” he told ST.

Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Hamidi, who is BN president, is facing dozens of charges. He has been accused of receiving bribes to extend a contract given to private company Ultra Kirana to operate a one-stop visa processing centre service in China for foreign workers, as well as the wider visa system involving the Home Ministry.

• Additional reporting by Zunaira Saieed

This article has been updated to state that only Adam Radlan Adam Muhammad will face new charges related to Jana Wibawa on Wednesday.