Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing no longer has an account on Twitter.
His official account under the handle @limkokwing can no longer be viewed and is inaccessible just hours after he was rebuked by Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir for attempting to get into her father Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s good books once more.
“He deleted his account,” Marina tweeted to Astro Awani talk show host Sharaad Kuttan in response to the latter’s post exclaiming that he was “blocked from viewing or following” Lim.
Marina posted a scathing tweet on Lim yesterday, accusing him of sneaking into her family home during the recent Raya seeking her father’s apology after turning against the latter three years ago.
Dr Mahathir, however, appears to have chosen to put Lim’s perceived betrayal of their friendship behind him.
“I am a most forgiving person. You too I forgive,” he was quoted by Malay daily Sinar Harian as telling reporters at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre, where his party PPBM is holding its second annual general assembly.
Lim and Dr Mahathir had been friends until the former was appointed public relation campaign coordinator to Datuk Seri Najib Razak in May 2015 to burnish the then prime minister’s image when he came under the harsh spotlight of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal.
He only had a short stint as in July he resigned from the position.
Yesterday, Lim posted on Twitter, “Tun Mahathir is absolutely right in saying that we just need to set our hearts and minds on achieving greater goals to be a great nation.”
Lim had tagged Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik.
Several hours after he posted the tweet, Marina replied to it asking the founder and president of the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology to “stop it”.
She went on to claim that Lim had “snuck” into their house during Hari Raya “uninvited” to apologise, presumably to Dr Mahathir.
“Do stop it @limkokwing! Where were you last year? Who was it who told Dad to shut up to ‘preserve his legacy’? If Pakatan Harapan (PH) hadn’t won, would you have snuck into our house uninvited at Raya to apologise. Just stop it,” Marina posted.
Responding to another Twitter user, Marina further claimed that she could not believe her eyes when she saw “him”, most likely referring to Lim, “skulking about our kitchen”.
Lim has yet to reply to Marina’s criticism.
In 2015, Dr Mahathir made a blogpost where he spoke about a friend, who he did not name but described as an educationist, warning him of losing his legacy should he persist in criticising Najib.
In the last sentence of the blogpost titled “Legacy”, Dr Mahathir used the phrase “ex-friend”.
Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir said the public expression of support for him by Lim was nothing new.
“Yes, we know there are those who find the easy way to do things. They will support those who are in power,” the prime minister said when asked to respond to Marina’s criticism of Lim.
He also suggested that Lim was not the only one who conveniently voiced their support for him after he became prime minister for the second time.
“When I did not have power, they did not support me. After I came back to power again, they have voiced their support for me. There are many like that,” he told reporters.
But he said he holds no grudges against Lim.