Lim Kit Siang has warned against those with “political axes to grind” who are attempting to influence public opinion with regard to the 1MDB scandal.

These quarters, said the DAP veteran, argue that with the change of government, Malaysians should now forget the scandal and allow the courts to decide on the matter, and shift their focus to what the Pakatan Harapan government can do to fulfil its election pledge of a New Malaysia instead.

“They cannot be more wrong. Malaysians can only forget about the monstrous global 1MDB scandal at their own risk.

“Malaysians should not forget about the catastrophe of the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and other rampant corruption of the previous administration, for it is going to take years and even decades to fully undo all the damages of the 1MDB scandal.

“Malaysia cannot overnight achieve the New Malaysia goal of a world top-class nation because of the ravages and the mindsets spawned by the 1MDB scandal,” he added in a statement this morning.

Although the present generation of Malaysians must pay the price for BN's scandals, Lim, however, said Harapan's victory in the last general election rescued future generations of suffering a fate similar to that of Venezuela.

“We must never forget the monstrous global 1MDB scandal and the rampant corruption of the past, but must remember the catastrophe we had miraculously escaped with the historic decision of the 14th general election,” he added.

Training his guns on Najib Abdul Razak, Lim said the former prime minister, his ministers as well as BN leaders and lawmakers had numerous opportunities to establish their credibility and patriotism in the past by stopping the 1MDB scandal, but they failed to do so.

“Why were they silent when the international media started to publish details of the monstrous global 1MDB scandal?

“Why did they remain silent in the 'Week of Long Knives' in July 2015, when the then attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, and minister for regional and rural development Shafie Apdal were summarily sacked, and the major institutions such as the police, MACC and Bank Negara castrated and lost their institutional independence and professionalism?

“The final blow to their credibility and patriotism was delivered in June 2016, when they continued in their complicity with Najib in the 1MDB scandal despite the largest kleptocratic forfeiture litigation of the US Department of Justice in what the former US attorney-general Jeff Sessions had described as 'kleptocracy at its worst' 1MDB scandal,” he added.

Lim said while there is no way for these BN leaders to cleanse themselves of their complicity in the scandal, they could have mitigated this by apologising in the past 14 months, which they had not done.