The communications and multimedia minister said reports on Malaysia and Prime Minister Najib Razak had been recycled from past reports about corruption, fraudulent elections, lack of democracy and denial of free speech.

He said in the last two days, the foreign media have been attacking Malaysia and Najib.

“This is not surprising considering that Dr Mahathir Mohamad had said, ‘we are forced to use the foreign media channels; the BN (Barisan Nasional) can do so, they have a lot of money to hire analysts from Cambridge’,” he said in a post on his blog.

Salleh, who is the Umno treasurer, said what foreign media are saying today is the same 30 years ago when Mahathir was the prime minister.

He said the opposition then viralled these reports to give the impression that the whole world was against Malaysia.

“What the foreign media fail to mention in these reports is the many cases of corruption now being investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in the Pakatan Harapan states of Selangor and Penang.

“Or about the allegations of cheating in 13th general election (in 2013), such as (the alleged bringing in of) 40,000 Bangladeshi voters, that were proven false,” he wrote.