KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 6— Malaysians must trust and have faith in each other and not fall prey to toxic politics of fear, hate and distrust, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang said today.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said he is alarmed by what he claims to be an escalation of a campaign online to sow distrust and hate among the country’s different races.

"Malaysians must note a dangerous tendency of late, where politics had been contaminated by the vicious and toxic politics of lies, fear, hate, race and religion, where instead of building tolerance, trust and confidence among the diverse races, religions, languages and cultures that meet in confluence in Malaysia, there is an insidious attempt to breed suspicion, distrust and hatred among the diverse races, religions, languages and cultures so as to poison the well of Malaysian nation-building,” he said in statement.

Lim pointed out that he himself had been a victim of such lies, and has in the past been accused of being either a communist, a relative of late communist leader Chin Peng, responsible for the May 13, 1969 race riots, being anti-Islam, a foreign agent, and even wanting to become prime minister.

He said the latest lie that was being spread was him wanting to be appointed as a federal minister, and that he had supposedly received RM1 billion from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to join and head Pakatan Harapan (PH) as well as RM100 million from tycoon Robert Kuok and over RM1.2 billion from Israeli sources to fund GE13.

The DAP leader added that he had even been accused of sealing an "agreement” with Dr Mahathir during a meeting on December 3, 2016 whereby he had supposedly agreed to becoming deputy prime minister and Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir as PM should PH win GE14.

Lim painstakingly pointed out that there was no such meeting, and that in all discussions with Dr Mahathir, the subject of PM or DPM was never brought up.

During the Cameron Highlands by-election, Lim said he had been accused of saying that the Orang Asli were not Malaysian citizens and for the words "Islam and Malay be dropped from the constitution.”

"This ‘moral deficit’ and the death of idealism in politics is the greatest culprit today in the politics of lies, hate, fear, race and religion in Malaysia today.

"If the lies and falsehoods disseminated about me by the well-funded anti-DAP cybertroopers are to be believed, then I am a billionaire and an "evil force” who threw tens and even hundreds of millions ringgit to sponsor news portals or remove recalcitrant heads of key government bureau apart from the litany of demonization of me over the decades,” he explained.

The challenge for Malaysia Baharu, Lim said is that there are still "Chinese who are living completely in the Chinese world, Malays who are living in a completely Malay world, Indians who are living in a completely Indian world, and the same goes with the Ibans and the Kadazans.”

Lim said these people must be made to understand the larger "Malaysian picture and perspective”, one of plurality and a shared destiny.

"Dare we continue to dream such a Malaysian Dream, and do more — oppose and expose the practitioners of the toxic and vicious politics of lies, hate, fear, race and religion because they are the greatest enemies of the Malaysian Dream, seeking to breed suspicion, distrust and hatred among the diverse races and religions instead of building tolerance, trust and confidence among the diverse races and religions so that we can leverage on the assets of the diversity in Malaysia for the country to become a world top-class nation,” he said.