KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 — PAS Youth said today that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has a chance to clear himself of any involvement in the Bumiputera Malaysia Finance Limited (BMF) scandal, following its demand to reopen investigations on the matter.
The wing’s assistant secretary Nurul Islam Mohamed Yusoff also downplayed a rift between PAS and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM), of which Dr Mahathir is a chairman, amid calls for a cooperation between the two opposition parties.
“If this investigation proves Tun Dr Mahathir is clean and had no wrongdoings, wouldn’t the people be more confident and believe him?
“For the sake of justice, all youths and Malaysians should stand beside me and support this effort to clear Tun Dr Mahathir’s name,” Nurul Islam said in a statement.
“We are confident that any political cooperation between PAS and PPBM would not be affected by the demands of the investigation and in fact it would increase the confidence people have on PAS and PPBM,” he added.
The forex scandal made headlines again after state-owned paper New Straits Times published an interview with Abdul Murad in which he claimed the central bank suffered foreign exchange losses of US$10 billion (RM44.3 billion) in the early 1990s.
Just a few days prior, the media reported about the declassified United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) papers which linked his administration to the BMF scandal in the 1980s.
Dr Mahathir has since downplayed the report, saying that it did not directly link himself to the scandal, and was merely a normal information paper for the US government back then.
Nurul’s demand to reopen the probe yesterday came following a public snub against PAS by Dr Mahathir.
Dr Mahathir had claimed the Opposition did not require PAS’ cooperation and could defeat the Islamist party in multi-cornered contests in the next general election.
