A PKR parliamentarian has questioned BN leaders' "moral authority" to ask Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to go on leave pending his trial.
Padang Serai MP N Surendran was commenting on MCA president Liow Tiong Lai's statement yesterday, suggesting that Lim should have the "wisdom" to step down from his post in the wake of his prosecution yesterday for alleged corruption.
"Many others from the BN coalition have also made similar calls.
"It is firstly quite difficult to take BN leaders seriously on this, considering their own longstanding problems of accountability and integrity.
"Do they have the moral authority to say anything at all on this?" asked Surendran in a statement today.
The charging of Lim yesterday has elicited a chorus of calls from various BN leaders emulating DAP's earlier call for Prime Minister Najib Razak to go on leave during the latter's 1MDB investigations.
Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang yesterday justified his silence on Najib's circumstances, saying the difference was that the prime minister was never charged, unlike Lim.
'Victimising opposition'
Surendran said it would indeed be appropriate for a high public official to step down if charged for a serious offence.
But he asked if the circumstances of Lim's case placed such an obligation upon the chief minister.
For example, he said, the "lack of evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Lim, based on the facts of the case that are clear and in the public knowledge".
The "unnecessary show of force" in Lim's arrest, said Surendran, was also revealing.
"The fact [is] that since independence, the political opposition has been consistently subjected to all manner of prosecutions, detentions and campaigns of vilification, which have periodically received worldwide condemnation from distinguished bodies, individuals and nations.
"Does Liow and all the others, who purport to give advice to Lim now, not see anything unfair in all of this?"
Surendran said in contrast was "the unavoidable and stark fact that to date, no prosecution has been brought in the 1MDB scandal which has directly implicated the prime minister and is the subject of worldwide probes".
The Penang chief minister was yesterday charged with abuse of power in the re-zoning of land in Penang and for obtaining property without sufficient consideration.
He denied the charges and claimed they were politically motivated.
