Anthony Loke: Decision on Batu Puteh followed Dr Mahathir’s lead as it was first Cabinet meeting for many

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 — DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke Siew Fook said he and other Cabinet members merely followed then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s decision on Batu Puteh as they were new to the government.

According to Free Malaysia Today, he said the May 2018 Cabinet meeting only “endorsed” Dr Mahathir’s decision to drop two legal applications regarding Batu Puteh.

“We went along with it because it was our first Cabinet meeting. Many of us didn’t even know what a Cabinet memorandum looked like,” Loke told reporters on the sidelines of the Malaysia-China Summit 2024 here today.

He said Dr Mahathir verbally raised the matter during the meeting and that ministers believed the decision had already been made beforehand.

“The prime minister raised the matter verbally, and we thought the decision was already made. It was just an endorsement of his earlier decision,” he said.

“Only later on did we know that Cabinet decisions needed to be made based on Cabinet memorandums... Looking back, this was not the case (for the Batu Puteh decision),” he added.

Loke stood by his claim that the decision to drop the legal applications was made without a thorough process.

Loke, along with Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Mohamad Sabu, previously said they had no opportunity to voice their stance on the matter when Dr Mahathir raised it during the meeting.

The trio said Dr Mahathir had already made the decision in writing, referring to a letter sent to the solicitor-general before the Cabinet meeting.

However, Dr Mahathir denied this and said the Cabinet minutes would show they were lying.

He maintained that all ministers had agreed to drop the applications to review and interpret the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2018 ruling on Batu Puteh.

Loke referred to the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s (RCI) findings, which highlighted flaws in the government’s decision-making process.

“The RCI report concluded that such an important issue, involving national sovereignty, should have gone through a more thorough process,” he said.

He added that there was no documentation, detailed briefing, or input from relevant agencies at the time.

“We had nothing to base our decisions on,” he said.

The RCI report revealed that Dr Mahathir wrote to the solicitor-general on May 21, 2018, stating the ICJ applications “need not be continued”.

The solicitor-general then informed Singapore about Malaysia’s decision to drop the applications at 9am on May 23, 2018.

The Cabinet, which met at 9.30am the same day, only discussed the matter later in the meeting under “other matters”.

The RCI highlighted the lack of proper documentation and consultation in the process, calling for a more thorough approach on issues of national sovereignty.