Speaking at a by-election ceramah in Sungai Besar, Selangor, last night, he said: “DAP and Pakatan Harapan are not enemies of ordinary Umno and PAS members” and he urged members of the two Malay-Muslim-based parties to join the campaign.
The campaign, which is now spearheaded by former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, had been aimed at ousting Najib as prime minister and Umno president. Last night he said it was also to stop Malaysia “from sliding down the slippery slope of corruption and abuses of power to become a failed state”.
Lim said that only a political coalition which represents Malaysia’s diverse communities, religions and regions could replace the Umno-led Barisan Nasional in the Federal Government.
“Only Pakatan Harapan and not PAS, whether as adviser to Najib or Umno, can play this role to usher in political change in Malaysia,” he said.
PAS fought the 2008 and 2013 elections as partners in the Pakatan Rakyat alliance. However, the alliance broke up last year after the DAP objected to PAS moves to impose Islamic criminal penalties, including whipping for adultery, in Kelantan under state law.
The Islamist party has since moved towards a closer relationship with Umno while the DAP, PKR and the PAS splinter party Amanah have formed a new alliance, the Pakatan Harapan.
Umno, PAS and Amanah candidates are contesting by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar, where polling takes place next Saturday.
Lim said the two by-elections had become a contest between Umno-BN and Amanah-Pakatan Harapan candidates: votes for the PAS candidates would be wasted as he said there was “no chance whatsoever” that either PAS candidate could win.
“In fact, I had said publicly that I expect the PAS candidate in Sungai Besar to lose by some 10,000 votes and in Kuala Kangsar to lose by some 5,000 votes as compared to the votes polled by the PAS candidates in 2013,” he said.
He said an Amanah victory in the two seats, traditional Umno strongholds, would be a political earthquake as no Umno candidate had ever lost in six decades. Voters would send a clear message that either Najib stepped down or the BN would be defeated in the 2018 General Election.
He said the main issue in the two by-elections was the 1MDB issue and the RM4.2 billion “donation” scandal.
He urged voters to note that corruption was not a “victimless crime” and that the real victims of the two scandals were all Malaysians, who would face higher taxes and cuts in essential development expenditures to pay off the “monstrous 1MDB debts”.
He said that 70 percent of MCA’s one million members had lost confidence in the MCA leadership, and similarly with MIC which claims 700,000 card-carrying members. He clamed that the bulk of the members of both parties had voted in support of the Pakatan Rakyat candidates at the 2013 general election, and urged Umno and PAS members to do the same.