KUALA LUMPUR, April 21 — DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang today denied a PAS leader’s suggestion that he was “wooing” Umno by agreeing to work with the party’s former president Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad in order to “save Malaysia” with a new political coalition.

The Gelang Patah MP added that he was only willing to cooperate with Dr Mahathir in order to make Malaysia more democratic, after PAS vice-president Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man asked why the former was open to working with a party that was “worse than those who robbed the nation”.

“Returning to Tuan Ibrahim’s question, he is wrong in thinking that I am wooing Umno with my idea of a Grand Coalition to “Save Malaysia”, which is post-BN and post-PR,” he said in a statement today referring to ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) and opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

“Tuan Ibrahim had wondered whether my proposed new coalition would work in the absence of a free press, an independent Election Commission and an independent Judiciary, stressing: ‘We are a stunted democracy. This issue must be addressed first.’ I fully agree with Tuan Ibrahim,” he said.

He added, however, in order for the country’s institutions to be independent, a new coalition must be formed as the BN and PR coalitions no longer work.

“I said on March 27 that such a post-BN, post-PR federal government coalition must repair the multitude of wrongs, weaknesses and scandals that have crept into Malaysian governance in the past decades,” he said.

Lim added that he did not consider PAS to be worse than Umno just because the Islamic party intended to push forward their hudud bill.

“DAP would not have formed Pakatan Rakyat with PAS together with PKR if we in the DAP had regarded PAS as worse than Umno,” he said.

He conceded, however, that PR’s internal crisis grew following PAS’ push for the implementation of the hudud law which went against the PR Common Policy Framework, adding that it was “impossible for PR to continue to be a political alternative to Barisan Nasional... as both the credibility and legitimacy of Pakatan Rakyat would have been destroyed by the own doings of PR component parties.”

Lim, who is DAP parliamentary leader, suggested last month the formation of a new government by a “Save Malaysia” coalition to comprise both BN and PR lawmakers, following the hudud controversy.

The Gelang Patah MP also said on Saturday that he is willing to work with Dr Mahathir in order to “save Malaysia” from the current policies that might plunge the country “down a slippery slope”.

Dr Mahathir attacked PAS’s hudud as a political ploy last Wednesday, saying he hopes Kelantan Umno understands the repercussions of its decision to back the Islamist party’s bid to enforce the controversial Islamic penal code.