The Dirty Moo

The DAP veteran revealed this in dismissing PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s tall tale that DAP had pressured Harapan over the ratification.

Lim said despite being in the dark about the matter, the blame was pinned on DAP.

“(Bersatu president) Muhyiddin (Yassin) should know this or has he become a liar like Hadi?” he asked in a statement this afternoon.

Muhyiddin, who is Hadi’s partner in Perikatan Nasional and a fellow architect of the Sheraton Move which led to the collapse of the Harapan government, had served as the home minister during Harapan’s brief reign.

Lim also pointed out that none of the DAP leaders in the Harapan administration oversaw portfolios concerning the ratification of Icerd and the Rome Statute. “And I was as surprised as everybody else when the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad spoke at the UN General Assembly in September 2018 about the ratification of UN covenants and treaties.

“This was why I had repeatedly asked the foreign minister at the time, Saifuddin Abdullah (who is now part of PN), to state that the ratification fiasco in 2018 was solely the fruit of his own making and had nothing to do with DAP,” he added.

Proarte : Why did Mahathir announce the ratification of the treaties ratification at UN in 2018 and then back down? To my mind, the ICERD and Rome Statute fiasco was all planned by Mahathir.

If in the past Mahathir was brave enough to make amendments to the Constitution to successfully curtail the powers of the Agung, what was the big deal then to ratify ICERD and the Rome Statute which would put us in league with other civilised Muslim nations who ratified the treaties?

I strongly suspect it was part of Mahathir's strategy to bring down Pakatan Harapan and in order to prevent Anwar from being PM. What LKS has revealed, that despite being in the Cabinet, DAP was excluded from the discussion regarding the introduction of the treaties.

Mahathir rode rough shod over them. If DAP made public that there was no discussion with them about the ICERD and ROME Statute, it would make PH look dysfunctional and undemocratic. DAP was caught between a rock and a hard place.

DAP had to face the fall out from the Malay populace who were fed fake news about the consequences of ratifying ICERD and the Rome Statute despite shockingly not being told about it. Saifuddin Abdullah and Mahathir knew if they did inform the Cabinet about introducing such a potential hot potato, the DAP would have advised them against it because the timing was not right because it could be exploited by UMNO, PAS and others to cause unrest, unless there was prior and proper explanation about the treaties.

When Mahathir announced at United Nations in September 2018 that Malaysia intended ratifying treaties it gave Saiffudin Abdullah the foreign minister, the excuse to introduce ICERD and the ROME statute. Shockingly he did this without discussion with other Cabinet colleagues on such a potential political hot potato.

The fact that it was introduced in secret and without any prior discussion with DAP, PKR and Amanah cabinet ministers, proves the sinister plot by Saifuddin and Mahathir. The rest is history.

The Malays could have been told the government was considering introducing ICERD and the ROME statute to be in line with 99% of Muslim countries in order to make Malaysia accountable to the world so that the plight for example of Rohyinga Muslims would unlikely to occur here. If this was the case, I dare say no Malay would have opposed to ICERD or the Rome Statute.