Fed up with Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s apparent “hyperactivity” and “race-baiting” torrents, Lim Kit Siang has challenged the former prime minister to public debates on his 22-year premiership.

The DAP supremo said he was prompted to issue the challenge to Mahathir for a series of seven public debates with him because of Mahathir’s actions over the past 100 days.

NONE Mahathir's “hyperactivity” of late, said Lim ( left ), has shaped up the coming general election to be a double referendum, not only on Najib Abdul Razak’s premiership, but on Mahathir’s own two-decade reign.

The former prime minister's reign, he added, was filled with “human rights violations, mega-financial scandals and the across-the-board subversion of independent national institutions such as the judiciary, the police and the civil service”.

“I particularly mention Mahathir as it is clear from the past 100 days that the longest-serving former prime minister has fully come out of the shadows to become the most powerful politician in Umno - even more powerful than the current (caretaker) prime minister and Umno president Najib.

"From Mahathir’s hyperactivity in the past 100 days, and his enormous influence as the ‘ de facto ’ prime minister, whose writ is even more powerful and commanding than that of Najib, the 13th general election is shaping up to be a double referendum on Najib’s four-year premiership and his national transformation agenda, and Mahathir’s 22-year premiership...” Lim said in a statement today.

Lim, who is the Gelang Patah candidate in the coming election, further urged Mahathir to act as a “responsible elder statesman” and cease “race-baiting and inciting communal sentiments and hatred” when issuing statements.

Such statements and actions, he said, were going against Mahathir’s own Bangsa Malaysia concept and Vision 2020.

Lim also called Najib to similarly accept opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s long-standing challenge to a public debate before the election, which has been fixed for May 5 .

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