Utusan Malaysia a real disgrace to Malaysian journalism – not a word of my reply to Najib’s “Ali Baba” attack on DAP although it devoted almost half a page to Najib’s attack

Utusan Malaysia is a real disgrace to Malaysian journalism.

There is not a word of my reply to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “Ali Baba” attack on the DAP although it devoted almost half a page in words and pictures to Najib’s attack on me.

Utusan Malaysia virtually carried in full Najib’s speech in Sindumin, Sabah on Saturday repeating the lie that I had reached a secret deal with Tun Mahathir where Mukhriz will be the Prime Minister and I the Deputy Prime Minister, and using that to mount further attacks on me, alleging that I would be the “most powerful individual”, that the Deputy Prime Minister would be deciding who is to be the Prime Minister if Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu succeeds in ousting UMNO/BN from Putrajaya and the Federal Government; and that this is a “ali baba” arrangement.

I have been in Malaysian politics for 51 years, but I had never asked any of the first five Prime Ministers - Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah – to see a psychiatrist, until yesterday when I asked Najib to see a psychiatrist.

This is because Najib is building a monumental structure of arguments based on a Big Lie – that Tun Mahathir and I had reached a secret deal where Mukhriz would be Prime Minister and I would be Deputy Prime Minister if Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu wins Putrajaya in the 14GE. There is no such agreement, as I had never discussed with Mahathir the questions as to who would be Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister if Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu defeat UMNO/BN in the 14th GE – and the purported secret meeting between Mahathir and myself on 3rd December 2016 never took place.

I challenge Najib to name the place and time of this so-called Dec. 3, 2016 meeting where Mahathir and I struck a secret deal that Mukhriz would be Prime Minister and I the Deputy Prime Minister?

If Najib could not even name the place and time of this alleged Dec. 3, 2016 secret meeting between Mahathir and myself, how could he build a monumental structure of arguments on one Big Lie?

In any event, if the so-called Dec. 3, 2016 meeting between Mahathir and myself is a secret meeting, how did Najib get information about the meeting? Has he got spies at the “secret” meeting?

In my reply to Najib yesterday, I had said that it was Najib himself who had created the biggest and most sinister “Ali Baba” partnership in Malaysia – the “Najib-Jho Low” Ali-Baba axis which catapulted Malaysia to a global kleptocracy with the largest world-wide financial scandal in recent times, the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal and made Jho Low an international kleptocratic fugitive from justice.

I had specifically asked Najib whether he had met Jho Low in his last visit to China. Why is Najib keeping mum?

Today, when the Yang di Pertuan Agong in his Royal Address said he was “disappointed” at “misappropriation of funds, leakages and corrupt practices” and advised people to co-operate “by not giving bribes”, I believe many MPs, including UMNO/BN MPs and Ministers, were thinking of Najib’s international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal and Malaysia’s infamy and ignominy in having become a “global kleptocracy”.

Malaysians must unite and mobilize to save Malaysia from being a “global kleptocracy”. To achieve this goal, the mass media including Utusan Malaysia must play a responsible role to publish news and not fake news and downright lies and falsehoods.

Will Utusan Malaysia publish my reply to Najib telling the Prime Minister that he has created the biggest and most sinister “Ali Baba” partnership and that the Prime Minister had been telling lies about DAP and about me – for instance, the so-called Dec. 3, 2016 secret meeting between Mahathir and myself was total concoction as it never happened.

Will the Utusan Malaysia editors reply and will they run into hiding?

Lim Kit Siang DAP Parliamentary Leader & MP for Gelang Patah