KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 5): The Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council has in its meeting today discussed the best policy for political funding to avoid the possibility of corruption, but has yet to come to a final decision.

In a press conference after the meeting, Pakatan Harapan chairman and Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the issue is of utmost priority for the coalition in order to eradicate the corruption culture in political parties in Malaysia.

"We have stated that there will be no more corruption in party management because the biggest corruption that are occurring are among political parties. But the fact is, political parties still need to have the finances to be able to manage their [parties]," he said.

"[However], today's meeting could not decide how political parties will be funded. We have yet to decide anything today so we will examine further how political parties can function without the help of anybody," Dr Mahathir added.

He pointed out that one of the suggestions from the meeting was to emulate the policy in Germany whereby political parties get an equal allocation from the government.

In Germany, political parties raise funds through a combination of membership fees, donations from individuals or companies, and annual subsidies by the government using taxpayers' money.

"This is to avoid (situations where) political parties accept donations from various individuals (or corporations) because this may be a way for people to bribe the government for their benefit," he said.

"That is why recently, when a company tried to donate RM100 million to the Tabung Harapan, we rejected it. We did not accept it because it was clear that the one who wants to donate [that amount of money] must have other intentions," Dr Mahathir clarified.

"If we had accepted it, we will only go back to the old culture," he added.

When asked if it would be fair for taxpayers to be funding political parties for party management and elections, Dr Mahathir answered, "We have not made a decision. That is just one of the alternatives that we may consider. But if you think that is unfair because the voters have to pay the parties, then we will not do such thing. But the alternative is we (political parties) will have to ask for donations and that opens a way for corruption."

Dr Mahathir said that at the moment, the matter is still being studied so that the notion of corruption will no longer arise whenever political parties raise money for party management purposes.

"We discussed the whole morning, but we couldn't find a solution," he added.