KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang today chastised MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong for supporting Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s appointment as the chairman of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) advisory board despite facing 42 criminal charges in court.

Lim denounced Wee’s remark of not commenting on personal matters, saying that the charges Najib faces are not personal and, in fact, a matter of public interest.

"It is a matter of definite public importance and national strategic significance. For Wee to dismiss Najib’s 42 criminal charges as a personal matter proves that MCA remains irresponsible by refusing to account for the tens of billions of ringgit in losses suffered by the Malaysian economy and the rakyat,” Lim said in a statement.

Lim praised former Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin and former supreme council member Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz for not supporting Najib’s chairmanship and said Wee should learn from the duo.

"He should learn the lesson from the 14th general election that the rakyat rejected corruption and the RM51 billion 1MDB scandal.

"By failing to learn the lesson of the 14th General Election, MCA and BN is not only unfit to rule the country but also unfit to be elected representatives,” Lim said.

Lim said Wee should learn that it is insane to expect BN and Umno can achieve better results with Najib in an influential position now.

"Najib’s ‘Malu Apa Bossku’ campaign is a bid to rebrand himself, and ‘Bossku’ is not a political party, but is something childish and just for fun that won’t translate into votes.

"Najib cannot claim he was the victim of ‘fitnah’ (slander) on 1MDB charges because there are court proceedings now, where there are already settlements in 1MDB related cases in the US and locally, involving more than a billion ringgit being returned back to the Finance Ministry,” Lim said.