KOTA KINABALU, April 1 — DAP’s Lim Kit Siang took a swipe at Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman whom he had suggested as a potential prime minister in a new bipartisan coalition, calling out the Sabah leader for being “lazy to read” his “Save Malaysia” proposal.

Lim said he would gladly remove Anifah’s name from his proposed list if the latter disagreed with his suggestions of a Sabahan as prime minister, the upholding of the Malaysia Agreement or the implementation of the hudud law in multi-racial Malaysia.

“It is a pity that Anifah has followed others in Barisan Nasional in demonstrating superficial understanding of my proposal, as he probably suffers from the same disease as other BN leaders — lazy to read and not really understanding what is being discussed and proposed,” Lim said in a statement today.

Lim had recently suggested a proposed bipartisan “Save Malaysia” pact, which listed among others, Sabahan and Sarawak male and female ministers as the next prime minister, as well as Anifah, Kalabakan MP Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh; and Works Minister Datuk Fadillah Yusof from Sarawak.

He said that if such a new coalition gets the support of the majority of the 222 Members of Parliament, then there will be a new prime minister, who can be from Peninsula Malaysia, Sarawak or Sabah, a man or a woman, as long as they are committed to defending the bedrock constitutional principles like the first five prime ministers of Malaysia.

Anifah yesterday said that he was happy because Lim had not named himself as a potential candidate but injected that there were many BN leaders who could become the prime minister.

He had also said that Lim did not consider any of the opposition leaders as potential candidates.

Anifah was among the Sabahan ministers recently suggested by Lim as the next prime minister in the proposed bipartisan pact. — AFP pic

Lim today shot back that he had the day before mentioned three PKR leaders who could be potential prime ministerial candidates: Nurul Izzah Anwar, Azmin Ali and Rafizi Ramli.

“I had said that if the two political coalitions in the country, BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR), lose all public trust, credibility and legitimacy, then Malaysians must dare to think the unthinkable and move beyond a political scenario dominated by two political coalitions into a post-BN, post-PR new phase of Malaysian politics.

“Unfortunately, daily political developments are only providing new fodder to a scenario where both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are increasingly being discredited,” he said.

He cited the call by PAS president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang to all 136 Muslim MPs to support his private member’s bill on hudud, against the party’s common policy framework as well as the silence from the prime minister, despite earlier claims by the MCA and Gerakan presidents that Datuk Seri Najib Razak would be issuing a statement declaring that Umno/BN opposes Hadi’s private member’s bill.

“In these circumstances, Malaysians must be prepared to break away from the present political mould since Merdeka in 1957 and Malaysia’s formation in 1963 to create a new political order,” he said.

Recently, the Kelantan state assembly approved the Shariah Criminal Code (II) (1993) 2015 Enactment with 31 votes from PAS lawmakers supported by 12 from Umno.

PAS is seeking to put forward two private members’ bills in Parliament to enable Kelantan to enforce hudud ― of which one will seek approval for the state to legislate punishment for crimes under the Penal Code.

Faced with the very real possibility of the three-party PR opposition pact breaking up over the hudud controversy, Lim suggested a week ago the formation of a new government by a “Save Malaysia” coalition comprising lawmakers from both sides of the political divide.