DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang today ticked off MACC chief Dzulkifli Ahmad for his contradictory stance with regard to cracking down on alleged corrupt politicians before the upcoming general election, which must be held by August next year.

Lim, who is Gelang Patah MP, noted that Dzulkifli had in May declared that MACC will only go after allegedly corrupt politicians after the 14th general election.

Dzulkifli had explained this was to avoid MACC being dragged into politics and its cases being used as fodder for campaigning in the general election.

However, Lim pointed out that the MACC this week arrested Parti Warisan Sabah president Shafie Apdal as well as several members of his party.

"Why then was Shafie Apdal (photo) and some 10 political officials from Warisan arrested by MACC?" Lim asked in a statement today.

Lim reiterated Harapan's initial position criticising Dzulkifli for only wanting to take action after the general election.

However, Lim said the contradictory stance showed the MACC had been selective in its action.

"Without going into the merits and demerits of the case, is this a blatant example of MACC discriminatory and selective persecution where the MACC has been 'weaponised' against the opponents of the Umno/BN coalition as alleged by the Sabah DAP secretary and Sri Tanjong assemblyperson Chan Foong Hin?

"Or had the MACC chief commissioner been completely overruled, and what happened was what Harapan chairperson Mahathir (Mohamad) wrote in his blog yesterday, alleging that the arrest of and probe into Shafie Apdal was Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's doing and was meant to weaken the opposition party Warisan," said Lim.

Shafie was on Thursday arrested by MACC to facilitate the investigation into the alleged misappropriation of at least RM1.5 billion in development funds for Sabah.

The alleged misappropriation of the funds was believed to have occurred when Shafie was rural and regional development minister, before his sacking in 2015.

Shafie was sacked for questioning Najib's handling of the 1MDB scandal and subsequently suspended as Umno vice-president.

The Semporna MP quit Umno in 2016 to form the Sabah-based Warisan in an attempt to dislodge Umno in Sabah.