DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang today questioned if former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s support of a warning against human rights was intended to pit the Prime Minister, Najib Abdul Razak, against his immediate predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Lim noted in a press statement today that Badawi, more popularly known as Pak Lah, leads the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) which has proposed far-reaching reforms for the Commonwealth that meets today to rein in members who violated human rights.

Describing this as the “battle of three prime ministers”, Lim asked if the warnings were pre-emptive strikes by Mahathir aimed at pressuring Najib against supporting Abdullah’s EPG proposals to improve the way the Commonwealth responds to human rights violaters.

Mahathir had yesterday backed former inspector-general of police Abdul Rahim Noor’s warning that the coming “human rights wave” would undermine the principles on which the country was founded.

“It can also be no coincidence that the two warnings by Mahathir and Rahim, made in a matter of 24 hours, came on the eve of the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth...”

“What is Najib’s stand - to endorse Abdullah and the EPG proposals at the Perth 2011 CHOGM or to buckle under to pressures by Mahathir and Rahim Noor and to prevent the  rogue Commonwealth countries which violate human rights from scrutiny and censure by a Commonwealth Commissioner for Democracy, the Rule of Law and Human Rights?”

Najib’s stance towards the reforms for such a commissioner and his decision to back Mahathir or Abdullah, Lim says, would be a clear indication whether the premier’s promise of democratisation has any credibility at all, Lim said.

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