Rural and Regional Development Minister Shafie Apdal has turned down an invitation from DAP’s Seputeh MP Teresa Kok to watch the latter’s controversial Chinese New Year satire video, claiming he had “better things to do”.

“I need to help manage a country here,” Shafie ( seated centre in photo ) said after attending an event at the Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (Risda) headquarters in Ampang today.

Shafie previously claimed that Kok’s video lampooned security forces and the Lahad Datu tragedy, an allegation that Kok had vehemently refuted and asked Shafie to watch the video with her in order to point out the parts which were offending to the security forces.

Shafie said that instead of using “online platforms for political purposes”, Kok and her colleagues should instead just focus on “managing Selangor”.

“Selangor is one of the richest states in Malaysia, and it is a pity what is happening in the state,” Shafie said.

He said that BN and the federal government do not like to be dragged “into the mess” created by Pakatan Rakyat's management of Selangor, referring to the Kajang by-election.

“All this is caused by their management of the state,” Shafie said.

Shafie, who is also an Umno vice-president, is not the only Umno minister to have made the claim that Kok’s video was offensive.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek also made a similar claim recently.

However, DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang had asked both ministers, and also Prime Minister Najib Adul Razak to watch the video with Kok, as he pointed out that the ministers probably could not have understood the video, which was in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Meanwhile, although he has refused to the watch her video, Kok is insisting that Shafie apologises to her.

“Shafie has been most irresponsible for accusing me of mocking the Lahad Datu tragedy as well as our security forces. Now that he has admitted that he did not watch the video before making the serious accusation, he must at least admit his mistake and make a public apology,” she said in a statement today.

She also asked that he informs her the source who fed him the wrong information regarding the contents of her video.