The DAP publicity secretary said Johari would be given a full hour to speak uninterrupted to voters to tell them not only why they should give the 1MDB issue a rest, but also why they should give Pua a “rest” by voting him out of office.
“There would be no better opportunity for the minister to do so than in front of an expected sell-out crowd of 300 tables,” he said in a statement today.
He said Johari could explain to the 3,000-odd audience why Pua’s “behaviour in respect of the entire affair does not fit that of a lawmaker” as he had claimed.
The event is scheduled to be held at the SS2 open carpark in the heart of Petaling Jaya Utara on May 6.
Pua said other speakers attending were DAP Parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (now Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia chairman), Amanah president Mohamad Sabu and PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli.
“The minister has a chance to put all of us out of business,” he said, asking if Johari would have the courage and conviction to meet the challenge.
Johari on March 20 penned an open letter asking Pua to give the 1MDB issue “a rest”.
Pua responded the next day with an open letter outlining some of the reasons he would not do so, and saying that Johari had failed to answer questions that were posed.
Pua today said Johari had maintained “elegant silence” since then. He said the minister must be “daydreaming” if he thought the matter had indeed come to a rest.
He said by addressing the matter at the event, Johari would have the perfect opportunity to not only put the 1MDB issue to rest, but also to give Pua himself “a rest”.
He said Johari was free to put forth his argument, as he did in the open letter, that “the spectacle of name-calling, not only towards me (Johari) but towards other members of the administration as well, is nothing less than embarrassing and demeaning to your (Pua’s) standing as a member of Parliament”.
He said Johari could ask the voters of PJU directly whether they had elected him as their MP “to do better things than just being obsessed with 1MDB”.
He added that no Barisan Nasional minister would offer him such an opportunity to attend their official events and get even 15 minutes to explain about alleged misappropriation of funds of some RM25 billion raised by 1MDB.
“However, perhaps in my foolishness, I am giving Umno-BN an excellent chance to sign my political death warrant,” Pua said.