KUALA LUMPUR – “Settling scores” with Barisan Nasional (BN) over previous material linking DAP leaders to the late communist leader Chin Peng is unproductive and would not benefit the unity government, PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli said.
Such claims, made recently by PAS lawmaker Siti Mastura Muhammad but reportedly originating in 2022 election campaign material for BN, are pointless to score points over, Rafizi said in a Free Malaysia Today report.
The economy minister said coalitions in the unity government had agreed to set aside their differences and to focus on developing the country.
“I don’t think anyone in the unity government wants to spend too much time settling scores. It does not help society. Our job is to focus on the bigger picture, which is nation-building,” FMT quoted Rafizi as saying at an event here today.
He was responding to Bersatu’s Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan who yesterday said DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng should also take legal action against BN, its ally in the unity government, for linking DAP leaders to Chin Peng in campaign material for the 15th general election last year.
Lim has already initiated legal action against Siti Mastura, the Kepala Batas MP, for her claims which she made when speaking at a PAS Ameerah event in Kemaman on November 4.
First-time lawmaker Siti Mastura, 34, had said that Lim and his father Tan Sri Lim Kit Siang are cousins of the late Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and also of the late Chin Peng, who headed the now defunct Malayan Communist Party.
She also named other DAP leaders like Seputeh MP Teresa Kok whom she said was a cousin of Guan Eng’s wife, Betty Chew, and that other DAP leaders were related to the Lim’s.
Police questioned Siti Mastura on Tuesday after reports were lodged against her. She told media after that she had submitted “reference material” which she used as the basis of her claims to the police.
Wan Saiful yesterday highlighted two pages in a book titled “Bahan Kempen Komunikasi BN” which stated the same claims Siti Mastura had made.
Yesterday, former Seremban Umno Youth chief Zool Amali Hussein also confirmed that the book was given to all party machinery just before nomination day for the 2022 polls.
Zool Amali, who joined Perikatan Nasional after leaving Umno on December 17 last year, reiterated that the book was printed when Umno was the government. – November 17, 2023