KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — Umno Youth’s plan to launch a nationwide roadshow to explain Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy conviction is the ruling party’s way of admitting it has lost public support, Lim Kit Siang says.

The DAP veteran leader said although Anwar lost the case in the Federal Court, the Opposition Leader chalked a clear win in the court of public opinion, forcing Umno to embark on a campaign to regain support.

“The... national roadshow featuring (lead prosecutor Tan Sri Muhammad) Shafee (Abdullah) is not only unprecedented and questionable... but is as good as an admission that although Shafee had won in the Federal Court with a 5-0 verdict in his favour, he has lost out in the court of public opinion,” Lim said in a statement.

The Gelang Patah MP labelled the roadshow “pathetic” and accused Shafee of attempting to have “a second bite of the cherry” in his prosecution of Anwar.

He asked if Shafee, who is Malaysia’s representative in the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), would next plan a campaign to win international favour.

After Anwar was convicted of sodomy on February 10 and sentenced to five years in jail, government leaders in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and Switzerland, as well as several foreign human rights groups and the international media condemned the decision as unfair.

“Will the ambit of his responsibility on the Asean Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights  now be expanded to include convincing the other Asean governments, if not the people of  other Asean nations, about Anwar’s guilt in the Sodomy II case?” Lim asked.

Shafee and Umno should reconsider its roadshow plan, the DAP leader continued, saying the anti-Anwar campaign would set a precedent that would affect the administration of justice.

Last week, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin announced the wing’s plan to embark on a series of forums to explain Anwar’s sodomy conviction and rebut claims of political persecution by the Opposition Leader.

Despite acknowledging calls for the attacks against Anwar to stop since he was already convicted, the sports and youth minister defended the campaign as necessary to preserve Umno’s “dignity” against the long-standing allegations.

Shafee has also given a number of media interviews on the case, denying that the court ruling had been influenced by political powers and attacking Anwar’s person, even labelling the former deputy prime minister a “closet homosexual”.

On February 10, the Federal Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s 2014 ruling that had reversed Anwar’s acquittal of sodomising former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and sentenced the Permatang Pauh lawmaker to five years’ jail.

Anwar will be disqualified as MP and federal opposition leader by Tuesday unless he files a petition seeking a royal pardon.