PCM vice-president Huan Cheng Guan said the Gelang Patah MP was a hypocrite as he had fought the Mahathir administration inside and outside Parliament over the scandal in the 1980s.
“He convinced voters in the 1983 Seremban by-election to make 10 demands regarding the BMF scandal investigation.
“He was the one who fiercely demanded a royal commission (of inquiry) to be formed to investigate the BMF scandal.
“He was the one who wrote the infamous book about the BMF Scandal,” Huan said, referring to Lim’s authorship of “BMF: The Scandal of Scandals”.
A recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency report states that the Malaysian government, then headed by Mahathir, the nation’s longest-serving prime minister, had tried to delay investigation into the BMF scandal while looking for a way to bail out the state-owned Bank Bumiputra.
The report also says the government had justified the secrecy surrounding its investigation with banking secrecy laws, adding that “a year’s delay after the problems surfaced in effecting any management changes at BMF has made the government suspect”.
Mahathir, after criticising Prime Minister Najib Razak’s leadership and policies over various issues, including the 1MDB controversy, is now working with the opposition through his new party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, an ally of Pakatan Harapan.
Huan, in a statement today, called Lim the “king of all hypocrites” and said his hypocrisy had reached a “godly new level” with him now choosing to “side with Mahathir, the culprit he had accused 34 years ago”.
“This is exactly what Lim Kit Siang is all about; he fights only for his political survival and never for the people.
“Every issue he had ever brought up was only a sick and evil manipulation to gain popularity and support from the people.”
Lim, when asked to comment on the CIA report yesterday, said it was “nothing new” and it “did not say anything he had not said in the past”.
He also said the BMF scandal was “a small thing” compared with 1MDB, adding that unlike BMF, the 1MDB issue linked to the present federal administration was never debated in the Dewan Rakyat.
Lim could not be reached for comment on Huan’s statement.