DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said Prime Minister Najib Razak is putting on a brave face while claiming that the government still has the support of the civil service.

Last night, Najib told Umno division chiefs at Seri Perdana that a majority of the 1.6 million civil servants are backing the Barisan Nasional government. 

“When and how long did Najib and Barisan Nasional government lose the support of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants?” Lim said in a statement today.

“Najib is whistling in the dark for three reasons. Najib has lost the support of the majority of Malays in the country. Najib has lost the support of the majority of the 1.6 million civil servants in the country.

“Never before in Umno history has a president like Najib lost the support of a higher percentage of Umno members – and we are talking about 3.5 million members,” Lim said. 

Lim added that the attacks on Pakatan Harapan leaders have reached new lows when the prime minister’s aide referred to Dr Mahathir Mohamad as DAP’s lapdog.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s aide, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad criticised former prime minister Dr Mahathir’s description of himself as “top dog” of Pakatan Harapan, and said, in reality, the “top dog’s leash in Kit Siang’s hand”.

“After 52 years in politics, I thought no propaganda offensive and lies, however bizarre or outlandish, would have surprised me but I was wrong,” Lim said, calling the attacks “scurrilous” and “scrapping the bottom of the barrel”.

The veteran DAP leader said he has faced six prime ministers – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Abdul Razak Hussein, Hussein Onn, Dr Mahathir, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib – but never “descended to the gutter level” of personal attacks, always “respecting the highest office in the land”. 

The term ‘top dog’... must be regarded as an absolute ‘No-No’ in Malaysian politics. To have to raid the animal kingdom to lower the bar in personal attacks on political opponents, especially a former prime minister, who was also the longest-serving PM in the nation’s history.

“It is a sad reflection on Najib himself,” the Gelang Patah MP added. 

Lim said despite “herculean efforts and astronomical expenses” to present Najib as a respected world leader, the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal swirling around the prime minister refuses to die.

Last month, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) filed its third civil suit, bringing to a total US$1.7 billion in 1MDB-linked assets that US authorities are seeking. Funds believed to be stolen from 1MDB now exceed US$4.5 billion, according to enforcement agencies from the US, UK and Switzerland.

Last week, Singaporean banker Yeo Jiawei, a wealth planner with BSI Singapore, was jailed for embezzlement and money-laundering of 1MDB money.

Singaporean prosecutors have also claimed that about US$1 billion (RM4.3 billion) of 1MDB funds meant for a joint venture with Petro Saudi International Ltd made its way into the bank accounts of Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low.

Lim charged that the Malaysian cabinet, Parliament and top national institutions like the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, police and Bank Negara all took part in “an elaborate charade pretending that the world’s largest kleptocracy scandal does not exist”. – July 20, 2017.