Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad and DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang are both "suffering from amnesia" for not acknowledging their respective roles in the Ops Lalang crackdown three decades ago, said MCA's Ti Lian Ker.

In a statement yesterday, the MCA publicity spokesperson said both men, despite being the oldest and longest-serving Malaysian politicians in the country, are now apparently on the same page when it comes to the crackdown launched by Mahathir when he was prime minister where over 100 dissidents were detained.

"Kit Siang in his blog posting on Feb 9, 2011, had accused Mahathir of rewriting history on Ops Lalang.

"He wrote as follows: Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is rewriting history when he blamed the police for the 1987 Operation Lalang mass Internal Security Act (ISA) arrests, claiming that he was furious over the mass crackdown, in the new book, 'Doctor M: Operation Malaysia – Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad' by Tom Plate.

"Mahathir is not only suffering from selective memory and faulty memory but is spinning untruths about his misdeeds in his 22 years as prime minister," Ti (photo) recalled Lim as having said.

Lim's son, Guan Eng, had also castigated Mahathir and absolved former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim of any blame in the arrests, Ti added.

"Guan Eng was reported in The Malay Mail, Feb 16, 2014, pinning responsibility for the detention of over 100 opposition figures squarely on Mahathir.

"Is DAP, Lim Kit Siang and son who had in the past absolved Anwar Ibrahim of any responsibility in the Ops Lalang operation, absolving Mahathir too, now that he’s an ally? It was only a few years ago that the entire blame was placed solely and squarely on Mahathir," Ti said.

He cited the statements released Friday by the father and son pair, in which they had recalled the dark episode in which both were detained on Oct 27, 1987, but "conveniently" made no mention of Mahathir and trained their guns on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak instead.

"So is this the alternative government or leaders that Malaysians are asked to vote for? Leaders with a long record of being dictatorial, authoritarian and Machiavellian? Leaders who can choose to be amnesiac, selective in their facts and seem to love their sons more than the nation?"