The source said the recent controversy over the academic credentials of Deputy Foreign Minister Marzuki Yahya was one such attack, adding that some media organisations have been “blatantly used to character-assassinate him over a non-issue”.

“The attack will be stepped up in the coming days with more dedicated reports calling for Marzuki’s resignation. Never mind the fact that he had never claimed to be a University of Cambridge degree holder,” the source told FMT.

On Friday, Marzuki fought back allegations that he had a “fake” Cambridge degree.

The Penang PPBM chief said he had never claimed to be a Cambridge graduate as stated in a Wikipedia entry about him, but admitted taking a degree course by a little-known distance-learning institution called Cambridge International University (CIU), labelled a “diploma mill” by a US-based education consultant.

Marzuki said he took CIU’s distant-learning course on logistics, adding that it helped him in running his logistics and shipping company in Penang.

The PPBM source described Marzuki as “enterprising” and very hardworking.

“If anything Marzuki is ‘guilty’ of, it is for acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge and not for an accredited degree,” he told FMT.

But the source added that Marzuki’s weakness was in not responding quickly to media attacks over his education background.

“He flip flopped, and that does not augur well for someone holding a portfolio that has to do with foreign relations,” the source added.

He said being a senator appointed to a top political position, Marzuki was a natural target.

“It is hardly surprising in today’s political scene. Marzuki, besides being a senator, is a deputy minister and party secretary-general, all plum positions,” he added.