Former Prime Minister and Perikatan Nasional chief Muhyiddin Yassin should prove he is not a desperate and dishonest politician stoking religious and extremist sentiments, by naming and proving his claims that a DAP minister had once asked for the Home Ministry to settle the Jill Ireland case out of court. Clearly Muhyiddin is trying to create a false narrative that Islam and Malays are under threat by the DAP and taking advantage of hate speech, lies and fear as a shortcut to return Perikatan Nasional to power. Malaysians cannot allow Muhyiddin to succeed.
The fact is that none of the 6 DAP Ministers, during Muhyiddin’s stint as the Home Minister from 2018-2020, had made such a request to Muhyiddin. Muhyiddin’s silence so far to my challenge to name the DAP Minister concerned and provide proof that the DAP Minister asked for the case to be settled out of court, testifies unequivocally that Muhyiddin is openly lying.
DAP Ministers are disciplined, busy and focused on their respective Ministerial portfolios, and would neither intrude nor interfere in matters outside their jurisdiction. More importantly, the decision and authority to proceed or not with the Jill Ireland case rests with the then Attorney-General Tommy Thomas. Tommy has always upheld his statutory duty to act independently and is more than capable to decide on such cases on his own without direction from any party.
Muhyiddin is making up stories to chant the mantra “ini semua salah DAP” to win Muslim votes in the upcoming state elections in 6 states. By continuing to fabricate falsehoods and relying on racist and extremist rhetoric, Muhyiddin has shown himself to be an irresponsible leader unfit for the high office of Prime Minister.
This is not the first time that Muhyiddin is making a false claim against DAP leaders without any evidence. Recently, Muhyiddin had tried to distract and divert attention from his corruption trial by claiming that I had cancelled the tax-exempt status of Yayasan Albukhary when I was serving as Finance Minister from 2018-2020. Muhyiddin’s claims are false.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had publicly repudiated Muhyiddin claims against me in Parliament as false, and stressing that neither the Minister nor the Ministry of Finance officials had issued any cancellation of Yayasan Albukhary’s tax-exempt status. Despite being unable to show proof to back his claims, Muhyiddin refuses to withdraw and apologise for his false allegations. I am suing Muhyiddin for defamation.
Malaysians are not so naïve as to simply believe in Muhyiddin’s baseless allegations made against DAP without a shred of proof or evidence. Malaysians can count themselves lucky to have a unity government, based on facts and figures under Anwar Ibrahim as Prime Minister, instead of Muhyiddin.