DR M NOT AFRAID OF GOING TO COURT

CYBERJAYA: Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Monday he was unperturbed by the claim of DAP Advisor Lim Kit Siang that the truth would be out about all the alleged financial scandals during his 22-year premiership if Pakatan Rakyat forms the Federal Government at the next general election.

He said Lim could do whatever he wanted even now to prove there were financial scandals during his premiership.

"He can open any file, even now. He can bring me to court. I am not afraid," he said when launching the KRU Academy, here.

On Sunday, Lim, who is Ipoh Timur MP, claimed that Dr Mahathir was worried that the truth would be out about all the alleged financial scandals during his 22-year premiership if Pakatan Rakyat won the next polls.

Asked about the "Green Rally to Putrajaya" gathering organised by PAS which allegedly drew 50,000 supporters, Dr Mahathir described it as 'a mass gathering on hire' and did not mean that Pakatan Rakyat would win the next general election.

"I used to get less than 100 people coming to my talks but I managed to win the elections. If you pay people to come, they will come.

It is a mass gathering on hire.

"We'll see during the election if that 50,000 translates into support and sends them (Pakatan Rakyat) to Putrajaya," he said.

Dr Mahathir said the perception was that the opposition was privileged in committing "blatant criminal acts" where any repercussion was seen as political "oppression".

He also alleged that the law was biased in favour of the opposition.

Dr Mahathir did not, however, provide any examples.

In an apparent reference to the recent Bersih 3.0 rally, the former prime minister repeated in a posting on his blog previous remarks that the police were deliberately provoked into behaving aggressively and that the alleged acts of police brutality had been "elicited".

The Bersih 3.0 rally for free and fair elections on April 28 had turned violent shortly after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd of thousands in the streets of the capital.

Policemen were seen attacking protesters but pockets of demonstrators also turned on the police, pelting them with hard objects such as broken concrete slabs, mineral water bottles and stones.

In his posting, Dr Mahathir did not name any individual but made specific mention to a "favourite candidate" of the foreign powers, whom he accused of deliberately timing the violence for when the general election is drawing near.

This "favourite candidate", he added, could do no wrong in the eyes of these foreign powers and any governmental action against this individual would later be regarded as an attempt to undermine the person's chances of ousting the current administration.

"If you are a favourite candidate of foreign powers for regime change, you can do what you like, and any governmental action against you would be labelled as uncalled for oppression," he said.

In his previous postings, Dr Mahathir had named Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as the candidate of foreign powers and accused the United States government and Israel as being co-conspirators in a plan to affect a regime change in Malaysia through the opposition leader.

All this, according to Dr Mahathir, makes the case for his claim that equality before the law was merely a fiction of democracy.

He said any action against the opposition by the government would never be deemed as an exercise in legal equality. Rather, it would be seen as a political move.

"Blatant criminal acts by the opposition leaders must be regarded as permissible. In law they must be considered as privileged people," he said.

But on the flip side, added the country's longest-serving prime minister, the police are expected to be punished for their alleged crimes against the people.

"There really is no equality before the law. Instead there is blatant inequality; there is bias in favour of some people especially the aspirants for regime change," he said.

As another example, Dr Mahathir added that the law often favours the rich as they are able to hire "brilliant and fearsome lawyers" instead of the ordinary run-of-the-mill legal practitioners.

"There is clearly no equality before the law. Get a good expensive lawyer and you can get away with murder. Get a bad cheap lawyer and you may be hanged for someone else's murder," he said.