If Mahathir Mohamad’s latest fulmination is right, then his premiership twice lasting close to a quarter of a century was an utter failure.
Mahathir is not only Malaysia’s longest Prime Minister, serving for over 22 years from 1981 to 2003, he was Prime Minister a second time for 22 months from May 2018 to February 2020 until he was toppled by the Sheraton Move political conspiracy.
Was Mahathir’s premiership twice an utter failure?
Only Mahathir will know.
But he has been acting strangely of late, giving “Politics is Dirty” a new meaning. He has not only made up with a person whom he termed a “traitor”, he has attacked young Malaysian politician Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and called him a “threat” to the Malay race.
I have been in Malaysian politics for close to 58 years but I am not aware that there had been attempts by non-Malays to change Malaysia’s name or that promoting a multi-racial Malaysia is against the Federal Constitution.
Mahathir’s warning that Malaysia will lose its membership in the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) if it promotes a multi-racial Malaysia defeats his own case – as Malaysia remains a member of OIC.
In fact, Malaysia has a higher percentage of its population who are Muslims than 14 other member-countries of the OIC.
Is Mahathir suggesting that the OIC will lose a quarter of its member-countries?
The six state polls on August 12 will decide whether Mahathir’s fulminations have a market in Malaysia.
It is sad that a person who had been Prime Minister twice and for close to a quarter of a century is now in the company of another politician who had been exposed as a person who have no qualms to make wild and preposterous allegations which he could not substantiate when challenged to do so.
Is Mahathir going to say that his second premiership was dominated by the DAP?
In his book, “Capturing Hope”, written after he was toppled by the Sheraton Move political conspiracy in February 2020, Mahathir wrote:
“At the same time the Pakatan Harapan Government was never a hopeless cause. Far from it. To this day, I believe that the Pakatan Harapan Government of 2018-2020, with our policies and commitment to a cleaner, better future, was the right path for Malaysia. And in the short period it governed the country, it did much to reverse the abuses of the kleptocrats.
“We were betrayed.”
Mahathir wrote this in September 2021.
He has made up with the “traitor”.
Does Mahathir still believe in what he wrote and said in the past?