Najib: I criticised Shafie even before PM nomination, he did not notice

Najib Abdul Razak has denied targetting Warisan president Shafie Apdal because the latter was named as a potential prime minister candidate for Pakatan Harapan and its allies.

In an immediate response to Shafie's claims in a Malaysiakini article, the former premier (above) said he had criticised the Sabah chief minister on various issues before.

"It is not true that I am only targeting him because he is named as one of the several PM candidates for Harapan.

"As Malaysiakini is aware, I have been writing on a wide range of issues daily since the 14th general election.

"This includes my criticism of how Warisan formed the backdoor government in Sabah with Tun Mahathir's (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) help when Tun threatened and used the MACC to harass Sabah BN assemblypersons, which caused many to jump ship," he added in a statement to Malaysiakini.

Earlier today, Malaysiakini quoted Shafie (below) as claiming that he landed in Najib's crosshairs because the latter was concerned about him being nominated as a prime minister candidate.

The Warisan president was responding to Najib leaking two appeal letters inked by Shafie with regard to government contracts in 2013 on social media.

At the time, Shafie was a member of the former premier's cabinet. He was later axed in 2015.

Meanwhile, Najib listed his previous criticisms against Shafee in his statement to Malaysiakini this afternoon.

These included Shafie's decision to appoint a Warisan member as director of Air Sabah after forming the state government despite the individual having been investigated over a corruption scandal involving the firm.

Najib said he also criticised Shafie for retaining the Air Sabah director despite a court ruling that his appointment was unconstitutional.

Apart from this, the former premier said he was also critical of the chief minister's selection of Peter Anthony as a Sabah minister and retaining him in the position even after he was charged in court.

On another issue, Najib pointed out that he took Shafie to task over the Sabah state government's failure to go after its deputy chief minister Christina Liew who owed it RM557 million.

"So it is not true that I am targeting him now because he has been named as a PM candidate.

"Perhaps he did not notice all the above criticism in the past when he was not named as PM candidate yet,” he added. - Mkini