'Ex-Umno reps must admit to abetting 1MDB scandal first'

INTERVIEW | Disquiet is mounting within DAP over their allies welcoming lawmakers who had recently quit Umno.

The oft-repeated reason - public disdain for Umno's reputation of corruption and excesses - the malaise that the fledgling Pakatan Harapan had promised voters that it will remedy.

Selangor DAP lawmaker Ronnie Liu revealed that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had once expressed in a meeting that Umno was "useless rubbish" and hence Bersatu should not be a "rubbish collector".

However, DAP's parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang does not view former Umno leaders that harshly - provided that they have the right intentions.

Lim, who has been the heartbeat of DAP for 50 years, said former Umno leaders now wishing to back Harapan must prove their integrity and that their motivations were not driven by opportunism.

At the very least, said Lim, these former Umno leaders should condemn their former party for allowing the 1MDB scandal - the hallmark of Umno's excesses - to manifest.

"I think there is a need for an expression that this (the defections) is an act of integrity and not an act of opportunism.

"It must be spelt out in a clearer form. For instance, that they regret their former support for 1MDB (and state their) condemnation and repudiation of 1MDB.

"And (they must state) their commitment for Malaysia to be transformed from a global kleptocracy into a leading nation on integrity," Lim said in an interview with Malaysiakini at the DAP headquarters yesterday.

Since the fall of the BN government, a steady stream of Umno lawmakers have been queueing up to see Mahathir, who would typically tell them to weather it out as independents while their membership to Bersatu was being assessed.

More Umno MPs expected to quit

So far, Bersatu has accepted three former Umno MPs and 14 state lawmakers into its ranks. Bersatu is now extending overtures to lawmakers who had just left Sabah Umno.

There are more Umno lawmakers expected to quit and look to Bersatu in the coming weeks or months, as Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's struggles with his weakening grip on a party addicted to power.

To Lim, "all Malaysians" are concerned with the shifting political allegiances because of the baggage carried by former Umno leaders.

Such examples, said Lim, included Pandikar Amin Mulia and Salleh Said Keruak, who were part of the exodus from Sabah Umno, and widely perceived as prominent defenders of Najib Abdul Razak and the 1MDB affair.

Pandikar was the Dewan Rakyat speaker who would repeatedly block attempts by opposition MPs to question Najib on 1MDB while Salleh (photo) served as Najib's communications minister.

Dubbing them the "1MDB speaker" and "1MDB minister" duo, Lim said they both have a lot of explaining to do to the people.

"They must declare themselves as doing it (quitting Umno) in realising how they had supported, aided and abetted 1MDB in the past was wrong and make clean breast of it," he said.

Simply admitting that 1MDB had been the cause of Umno and BN’s downfall was not enough. Lim said they must state that 1MDB and the former government's cover-up attempts were wrong.

"Let's just see how far they are prepared to go," he added, chuckling.

Despite his demands and reservations, Lim maintained he was not opposed to Umno defectors crossing over to the ruling coalition.

"Well, people can make mistakes, we're not saying that people do not make (mistakes).

"You must make a clean breast of it, break from the past and (say) you're prepared to fully support efforts to bring transformation of Malaysia from global kleptocracy to a leading nation of integrity," he reiterated. - Mkini