The Malaysian Insight

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Mohamad Apandi Ali could be held culpable for hiding evidence in connection to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal, said former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad last night.

“I’m not a lawyer, but I know that what he did is a crime. It’s the responsibility of those who know of a crime to report it to the police,” said Dr Mahathir, who turned 92 last week.

“The AG’s Chambers may have committed a big offence. You will know this one day when we win,” he told an audience of 1,000 in Shah Alam.

“When we win, we will call the AG and ask him ‘Did you hide proof of a crime?’ But for us to do this, we must forget the past,” he said

Shah Alam is the second stop in Pakatan Harapan’s nationwide roadshow to explain the 1MDB scandal to Malay Muslims who are key voters in the next general election.

The ceramah is also the first event to be held the coalition after it announced its much-awaited leadership line-up.

Dr Mahathir criticised the government for placing the investigations into 1MDB conducted by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, Bank Negara and Auditor General under the Official Secrets Act. 

He said Pakatan Harapan must unite in one cause, which is to bring Najib down.

He urged Pakatan Harapan components to set aside their ideological differences and unite if the coalition wished to to defeat the Najib administration.

The Bersatu chairman was speaking for the first time as the opposition coalition chairman.

“I used to be the BN leader. I won a lot. And we won in five elections because the opposition was weak. Why were they weak? Because they were not united. They fought among themselves and BN won,” said Dr Mahathir.

“Then came Tengku Razaleigh (Hamzah),” Dr Mahathir said, referring to the Umno strongman who broke away to form Semangat 46 in 1987. 

“He took the BN system and tried to combine the opposition parties, but it failed, because there were parties that did not want to co-operate,

“Back then they (the opposition) used three symbols and this confused the voters,” Dr Maahthir added.

“We have a pahlawan Bugis konon (so-called Bugis warrior). But he has the characteristics of a pirate. His father was a good man, but the son has returned to the ways of his ancestors and turned into a pirate.

Dr Mahathir said he did not expect Najib to be so different from his father and Malaysia’s second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein.

On the matter of who would be PM if PH won, Dr Mahathir asked the crowd to “Let us win first, then we will discuss the rest later”. 

“We need to combine our focus. We need to move in tandem. Our slogan must be the same. United we stand, divided we fall. We must unite. 

“Each party may have its own struggle, its own fight. But in this we have only one objective, which is to defeat the kleptocratic government.” – July 18, 2017.