KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 5): DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's Cabinet must deal with the problem of disinformation and polarisation of social media, which pose an existential threat to Malaysian parliamentary democracy.

In a statement on Monday (Dec 5), the DAP elder said one of the lessons Malaysians must learn from the 22-month Pakatan Harapan government is the frightening reality about the intersection of digital technologies and the health of democracies, how digital technology could change the entire political landscape by lies, falsehoods and fake news through the social media of WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, Telegram and TikTok.

“In the 15th general election (GE15), DAP was again falsely accused of being anti-Malay and anti-Islam, with the additional false accusations of DAP as communist and promoting Islamophobia, causing racial and religious fear and hatred in the land to hijack democracy.

“We must not allow the toxic politics of lies, hate, fear, race, and religion free rein for they can destroy Malaysian parliamentary democracy and condemn Malaysia to the fate of a third-rate failed, divided and kleptocratic state,” he said.

Lim added that DAP had been demonised with all sorts of lies and falsehoods, but DAP national chairman Lim Guan Eng is the only political leader in Malaysia who had crossed ethnic and religious lines to sacrifice his political future and position as a Member of Parliament, and even went to jail, in the defence of honour and dignity of an underaged Malay girl, when he was a Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka in the 90s.

“No political leader, whether Umno, MCA, MIC, PAS or any other political party, had ever made such sacrifices.

“We must ensure that in the GE16, Malaysia does not have to grapple with the toxic politics of lies, fear, hate, race and religion, and that Malaysia has learnt from the lessons of the GE14 and GE15,” he said.