In other countries, authoritarian leaders are using fake news to explain away atrocities and human rights violations as in Syria, Venezuela and even Myanmar.

Malaysia, however, is providing the world a new example where fake news are being used to explain away corruption and abuses of power, particularly the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal, which has been described by the United States Attorney-General Jeff Sessions as the world’s worst case of kleptocracy and earned for Malaysia the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of a global kleptocracy.

Has Parliament ever discussed Malaysia’s epithet of being regarded by the world as a global kleptocracy?

Of course not, because the powers-that-be in Malaysia, led by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak does not want the country to acknowledge that Malaysia has an international 1MDB kleptocracy scandal but instead want 30 million Malaysians to have eyes that see not, ears that hear not and mouths that speak not and pretend that a scandal that continues to make international headlines simply does not exist within the four walls of Malaysia.

As far as Najib and the Malaysian Cabinet and Government are concerned, the so-called 1MDB scandal is no different from “fake news”.

This is why RM400 million 1MDB-related funds in the Swiss banks may end up the Swiss government coffers when the RM400 million belong to the people of Malaysia but the Malaysian Government wants to be the world’s “Great Pretender”, and why the seizure of 1MDB mastermind Jho Loh’s billion-ringgit luxury yacht, Equanimity, in Bali this evening by the Indonesian authorities is treated as a “non-event”.

I urge all Malaysians to be particularly vigilant in the coming 14th General Election to ensure that the election results are not stolen by a variety of dirty and undemocratic measures – including the mass manufacture and peddling of fake news by the powers-that-be.

I have long been the victim of the campaign of fake news and false information, both in the Barisan Nasional owned and controlled “mainstream” mass media and recently the social media.

Tomorrow I will go to the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to lodge a complaint against the latest fake news and false information made against me, claiming that I had received RM100 million from Robert Kuok since the 13th General Election and that I am a “closet evangelist responsible for activities by a group of radical evangelists, who since the eighties, organized various activities to turn the Chinese against Muslims”.

May be I should complain to Robert Kuok why he is only giving me RM100 million when Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is accused of giving me RM1 billion so that his party, PPBM, could be admitted into Pakatan Harapan.

There is of course no truth, logic or consistency in such conspiracy of fake news and false information.

For instance, Robert Kuok is accused of funding me so that the Chinese could dominate Malaysian politics by dividing the Malays among UMNO, PAS, PKR, AMANAH and Bersatu.

But if there is logic and consistency in this tall tale then I should be giving Mahathir RM1 billion and not Mahathir giving me RM1 billion! Why is Mahathir giving me RM1 billion?

But only a crazy person will try to find truth, logic or consistency in such ridiculous tales.

I am accused of being a “closet evangelist” since the eighties. If true, I must be the only person in the world to be an evangelist without being a Christian.

Be that as it may, Malaysians should be very discerning what they are told not only in the social media, but in the fake papers which pass off as newspapers like Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian, New Straits Times and even the Star – the lies they publish and the truths which they black out.

They must always check and verify the truth of what they learn, whether in the newspapers, fake papers, radio, television or the social media.

(Speech at the DAP forum “GE 14: Battle of Fake News” at Summit, Subang Jaya on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2018 at 9 pm)