MUKTAMAR | Pakatan Harapan will be a worse government than Umno if it is allowed to rule Malaysia for 60 years, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang declared today.

Pointing at the corruption case against Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, which was recently dropped by the prosecution, Hadi said the Harapan administration had only been in power for four months when the incident took place.

"Previously, during Umno's 60 years as the ruling party, there were menteri besar and federal ministers dragged into the anti-corruption court. Its leaders even went to jail (for corruption).

"Pakatan Harapan had only come into power for several months, but the court case (against Lim) has already been dropped, just like that.

"Only four months... they already have problems, what more if they get (to be the government) for 60 years? They would be worse, more horrible than Umno.

"This is what we are facing today," Hadi said in his opening speech at the national convention for the PAS supporters’ wing in Kuala Terengganu this morning.

Earlier this month, the High Court in Penang acquitted Lim of two graft charges on the conversion of the status of a plot of state land and the purchase of a bungalow at below market value.

The court also acquitted businessperson Phang Li Koon on her charge of abetting Lim in obtaining the aforementioned bungalow.

Initially, the prosecution, led by deputy public prosecutor Mohd Masri Daud, had asked for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal after the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) accepted the representations from the lawyers for Lim and Phang.

However, High Court judge Hadhariah Syed Ismail decided to grant the pair full acquittals.

The prosecution's decision to drop charges against Lim and Phang drew criticism and calls for institutional reforms from various parties, including civil society organisations such as Bersih and the Center to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4).

The MACC had issued an official statement, released on the same day of the court ruling, saying that it was "shocked" that the charges had been dropped.