Lim Kit Siang accused Barisan Nasional (BN) today of an elaborate conspiracy allegedly orchestrated with the help of former DAP members to demonise the opposition party ahead of and following Election 2013.
The DAP adviser claimed in a statement here that a preliminary inquiry has revealed that the conspiracy was hatched some three months before Parliament was dissolved on April 3, and was aimed at running down the party’s image ahead of the crucial polls.
According to Lim, the ploy included allegations of the “fictitious Red Bean army (RBA)”, a purported online operation of cybertroopers allegedly funded by the DAP to incite hatred, particularly among the Chinese, against BN.
“The main purveyors of the lies about the ‘Red Bean Army’ are the Umno/BN owned/controlled print media, which include Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Star, both before and after the 13th General Election on May 5,” the Gelang Patah MP alleged in the statement.
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“But the lies about the so-called DAP-funded Red Beans Army were only part of a larger plot since early January to demonise the DAP with lies and falsehoods and it is sad that there are former DAP members and leaders who were prepared to stoop so low as to tell lies and falsehoods to further this Umno/BN agenda,” he added.
The political veteran, however, appeared to scoff at the alleged attempt to damage his party’s image at the polls, pointing out that it had not worked as the DAP went on to score a significant 38 parliamentary and 95 state assembly seats.
“Their lies and falsehoods cannot hurt DAP as nobody would believe them,” he said.
“(But) to justify the failed Umno/BN investments on them, these DAP renegades are continuing their campaign of lies and invectives against DAP leaders
“Up to now, the DAP leadership had ignored them as they are utterly irrelevant but if they continue with their lies, falsehoods and invectives against DAP leaders, then they must be prepared to be exposed for the cads that they are or have become,” Lim added.
Earlier today, Malaysian entrepreneur Pua Khein Seng denied accusations that he had been funding the so-called RBA for the DAP.
The Taiwan-based Pua, whose company Phison Electronics Corp was behind the world’s first single-chip USB pendrive, rebutted what he described as a “fabricated report” in Utusan Malaysia last week and has not ruled out legal action against the Umno-based paper.
“Firstly, this is a fabricated, baseless and malicious allegation and I honestly do not know how I should respond since it is an unfounded accusation,” Pua said in a statement that was read out by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng today.
Pua, who reportedly campaigned for DAP leaders in Johor during the general election, said he is ready to provide cooperation to those probing allegations on the online group of cybertroopers.
“Secondly, I hereby urge the authorities who are investigating this allegation to contact me as soon as possible for the truth to be revealed. I will fully co-operate with the authorities.
“I will not hesitate to take legal action against Utusan Malaysia when the investigations are completed by the authorities,” the Phison chief executive officer wrote in the brief statement.
Utusan Malaysia had reported that a Malaysian-owned electronic firm in Taiwan was under investigation for allegedly funding the “Red Bean Army”, citing an unnamed source who said a photograph of the company’s founder with Lim had been published online.
The source also reportedly said the unnamed firm had opened a branch in Penang, with the daily saying that the firm is allegedly believed to have close ties with the Penang state administration.
On May 25, Utusan Malaysia front-paged a report on the RBA, alleging that some 200 RBA members are on the DAP’s payroll earning up to RM3,000 monthly and that the party has been spending some RM1.5 million over the past six years to fund the operation.
The report also claimed that the duty of the RBA is to attack any politician, businessman or entertainer who is seen as pro-BN via social media sites.
But in an immediate response at the time, Lim had said his party would not have the financial muscle to pull off such an expensive operation, noting that if it had spent RM1.5 million monthly over the past six years to run the RBA, it would have spent an overall sum of RM108 million.
