It appears Ben Cayetano isn’t the only former Hawaii politician to get irked about allegations of pay-to-play this election season.

Former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann sent out an email newsletter Friday saying he was recently accused of being involved in a pay-to-play scheme while he was in office.

He said he believes it’s because of his endorsement of Kirk Caldwell for Honolulu mayor over Cayetano.

Unfortunately, my endorsement of Kirk has brought out the worst in some people. Many of you have seen or heard commercials from a group called Defend Ben, that falsely accuse me of putting into place a “pay to play” system at City Hall.  This term implies that City contracts were awarded in return for campaign contributions.  Defend Ben claims Kirk condones this practice.  None of this is true.

The allegations against Hannemann are quite interesting in that they parallel those made against Cayetano, except in the former governor’s case it’s the heavily financed Pacific Resource Partnership that’s levying the charges.

Hannemann also borrows from Cayetano’s quiver to defend himself from the pay-to-play allegations, citing statements made by former chief of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission.

Bob Watada, former head of the Campaign Spending Commission, said, “The Mufi Hannemann campaign took measures to review all campaign contributions to ensure they met legal requirements.  When notified by the Campaign Spending Commission of contributions improperly concealed by the donors, the Hannemann campaign organization took immediate steps to return the funds.  Mufi Hannemann has a clean record with the Campaign Spending Commission.”

—Nick Grube