Dr Mahathir had told China Press that he was instrumental in bringing Malay support and the DAP would not have gotten “more than 18 seats” if it was not because of him. DAP has 42 seats in Parliament now.

Lim said Mahathir was “wrong” because DAP won 24 seats in the 1986 polls and that numbers rose to the present 42 number, over two general elections in 1990 and 2008.

“I admit that Mahathir had helped in DAP winning 42 parliamentary seats in the 2018 general election, but to say that the DAP could not win more than 18 parliamentary seats is totally incorrect,” he said in a statement.

He said despite being labelled as anti-Malay and anti-Islam, DAP held on to its multiracial motto, producing political leaders from every stratum of society.

Lim said that as early as the 1969 polls, two Malay DAP leaders were elected as state assemblymen and the party had once nominated Ibrahim Singgeh to be Perak menteri besar in the event the party won the state.

He said there have been more than a dozen Malay assemblymen and MPs under DAP’s wings since then, adding that the party would not work with kleptocratic Umno leaders, whose numbers had “expanded from two to three persons”.

Separately, Lim touched on Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s call to give “Malay citizenship” to all regardless of race. He said all must first regard themselves as Malaysians.

“Let us move forward with the times. Only then can we achieve a Bangsa Malaysia as envisioned in the failed Vision 2020.”