KUALA LUMPUR, July 30 — DAP lawmaker Lim Kit Siang today challenged Datuk Seri Najib Razak to a debate titled “Islam is not kleptocracy” after the former prime minister accused him of equating the religion to a society whose leaders steal from the people to enrich themselves.
“The ball is in Najib’s court. Accept the challenge and our respective representatives can decide on the place, date, time and other details for the public forum,” the Iskandar Puteri MP said in a statement.
Lim took a swipe at Najib by mocking the Pekan MP as the embodiment of the idiom “grasping at straws” when he issued the kleptocracy statement.
He added that none of the past prime ministers before Najib had shown such desperation in playing the religion card.
“After educating Malaysians about kleptocracy, Najib is providing Malaysians a free education to understand the meaning of the idiom ‘grasping at straws’, when he insisted that I had linked Islam to kleptocracy and wanted an apology from me,” Lim said.
Yesterday Najib had demanded Lim apologise and stop linking kleptocracy to any religion that is not his own, especially Islam.
The former prime minister shared several screenshots of the DAP MP’s statement, saying the latter clearly implied that Islam would equal kleptocracy should Barisan Nasional win the Sungai Kandis by-election.
Lim agreed that anyone, including himself, who linked Islam to kleptocracy owes Islam an unqualified apology as this is not what the religion or any others teaches.
Najib has been charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of corruption over the misappropriation of RM42 billion from SRC International Sdn Bhd, a former subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad that he had helped set up.
