KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — Barisan Nasional (BN) is engineering its next defeat by appointing Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the coalition’s chief advisor, DAP’s Lim Kit Siang said today to cheer on the move.

The Iskandar Puteri MP also took specific aim at rival MCA party, reminding the latter that it had protested Umno’s courtship of PAS after last year’s general election.

Lim further noted that Najib, who remains on trial for dozens of money laundering and corruption charges, appears to have eclipsed the coalition’s component leaders.

"I have no objection to this phenomenon, for it is the recipe for electoral catastrophe, as it is based on the fallacy that Malaysians are fervent supporters of the toxic combination of  kleptocracy and  a theocracy in which lies are permissible and corruption is no sin — as the greatest supporter of Najib is none other than the PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang,” Lim said in a statement today.

He also expressed disgust that BN still refused to acknowledge its role in the global 1MDB corruption scandal despite mounting evidence worldwide as well as the coalition’s attempts to bar parliamentary discussions of the matter.

Najib led BN to its one and only general election defeat last year and subsequently resigned as its chairman.

However, the coalition appointed him as the chairman of its advisory board earlier this month, effectively making him its de facto leader.

Current BN chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi previously presented the decision to appoint Najib as unanimously made by the BN parties that are now limited to just Umno, MCA and MIC.