Why should anyone trust Dr Mahathir?

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  The Malaysian Insider

  5 March 2016
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  ricky l40 seconds ago

  Dr M is willing to do anything - including ruining the country, ruining his party, ruining his friends and foes to achieve his objective - and put his son to be the PM of Malaysia.

  Dr M will not nurture anyone else to be the PM of Malaysia - and Dr M will use all sorts of tactics, strategies, including making friends with his previous foes to achieve his objectives.

  All, including the future of Malaysia, the future of his party, and everyone else can be his pawn, and can be sacrifice along the way.

  Dr M has no intention to nurture any successors except his son.

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — An Umno leader’s Department of Special Affairs (JASA) director Datuk Dr Puad Zarkashi claim that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s demand for Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s resignation was motivated by his desire to make his son, Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir, the new prime minister.

JASA is a newly set up agency department under the Prime Minister’s Department.

Puad made the allegation after Dr Mahathir appeared together with former political rivals including those from the DAP in a press conference to announce a campaign to oust Najib.

Puad Zarkashi claimed Dr Mahathir was so engrossed in his efforts to make Mukhriz the next prime minister that he was even willing to align himself with the “enemies” of the Malays and Islam.

Dr M, Umno backers should be punished over anti-Najib campaign, division leaders say
The Malay Mail Online
BY A. RUBAN Tue, 8 Mar 6:26 pm GMT+8

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — A group of Umno division vice-chairmen today urged their leaders and Putrajaya to penalise Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and party members behind the campaign to unseat Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

At a press conference here, the group called the 1Malaysia Umno division vice-chairmen’s club also expressed their objections to Dr Mahathir’s “Citizens’ Declaration” which, among others, calls for Najib’s removal.


Club president Datuk Mohammad Anuar Yunus said the Umno supreme council should sack leaders like suspended deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, former Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir and Tan Sri Sanusi Junid for backing Dr Mahathir and the opposition in their “unconstitutional” cause.

As for Dr Mahathir, Anuar said the federal government should strip the country’s longest serving former prime minister of his positions in several government-linked companies.

“We want the government to use its powers and remove Dr Mahathir from Yayasan Kepimpinan Perdana, Petronas and Proton.

“As for Muhyiddin, Mukhriz and Tan Sri Sanusi, we want the supreme council to strip them off their memberships,” he told a packed press conference before handing over a memorandum on the club’s demands to a representative from Umno’s headquarters here

Mohd Anuar, who is Temerloh Umno vice-chairman, also said that his club wants the party supreme council to weed out members in support of Najib’s removal.

Asked if this meant the club only wanted “yes men” in the party, Mohd Annuar denied this, and said members were allowed to express their dissatisfaction but through the right channels.

“They can always bring their grouses to the branch, division or even the supreme council meetings.

“We are just sad that these leaders openly brought their grouses on a platform that was evidently aimed at bringing down Datuk Seri Najib in an unconstitutional way so that they can replace him with Mukhriz,” he said.

Anuar added that his club felt disgusted with Dr Mahathir and the Umno leaders for aligning themselves with the opposition and government dissidents to remove Najib.

“Some of these activists fight for apostasy, LGBT, abolishment of Shariah criminal laws and stripping off the special rights of Bumiputeras,” he said, adding that these are against Umno’s principles.

Last Friday, old enemies in politics and human rights activists banded with Dr Mahathir to push for Najib to be replaced.

The group signed Dr Mahathir’s “Citizens’ Declaration”, which, apart from seeking Najib’s resignation, also expressed concern over the controversies surrounding state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the RM2.6 billion political donation fiasco.


For Umno, analysts say Dr M’s sleeping with enemy likely a step too far


By Ida Lim
The Malay Mail Online
March 19, 2016




View photos
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s collaboration with political rivals and civil activists has rattled the Umno grassroots — Reuters picMore


KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s collaboration with political rivals and civil activists to oust Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has rattled the Umno grassroots.

Seeing their once-revered icon at the same table with former nemeses such as DAP’s Lim Kit Siang has led to cries of betrayal, prompting one Umno leader yesterday to lead a protest of hundreds against Dr Mahathir whom they now called a race traitor.

And while political analysts who spoke to Malay Mail Online said the current atmosphere made it too difficult to gauge if Dr Mahathr’s gambit will pay off, they concurred it was one that carried a clear risk of alienating the Malay nationalist party.

“In general, it’s too much for Umno members to accept Tun’s collaboration with the opposition.

“They cannot imagine Tun can go that far, collaborate with current enemies Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim, so then you can see there’s an issue of desperation and issue of we need to come to a different level of game,” Dr Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) told Malay Mail Online.

On March 4, Dr Mahathir banded together with other Barisan Nasional (BN) veterans, opposition politicians and human rights activists and formed a bipartisan initiative they dubbed “Save Malaysia” to pressure Najib to resign from office.

Mohd Azizuddin said the 90-year-old who served as prime minister for 22 years still holds immense clout within Umno even after quitting the Malay nationalist party, but the collaboration was a “wrong move” because many from Dr Mahathir’s camp are now distancing themselves from him.

He added that the Dr Mahathir-led campaign may not succeed because Umno members, like those of other parties, tend to follow a feudalistic tradition and remain loyal to whichever leader still holds power.

“Previously Tun pressured from within [Umno] but he failed because one by one, leaders are removed; Muhyiddin, his son, so the feeling is he has no other choice but to pressure Najib from outside the party,” the UUM academic said.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin is still Pagoh Umno division leader but was removed last month as Umno deputy president, sending him further into the exile he has been in since he was dropped as deputy prime minister last July.

Mohd Azizuddin said that Dr Mahathir’s move also carries an additional risk of possibly going out of control and costing Barisan Nasional the next general election, further reducing the likelihood that he will gain backing from Umno members who may otherwise be sympathetic.

Political scientist Professor Faisal Hazis said Dr Mahathir was forced to “gamble” with the opposition after gaining no traction in Umno with his campaign against Najib as most of its division chiefs today back the party president.

The Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) academic said it was bad strategy for Dr Mahathir to attempt to force Najib’s removal from outside Umno in contrast to the removal of his successor Tun Abdullah Badawi though a buildup of pressure within the party.

However, Faisal also suggested that Dr Mahathir may have calculated the possibility of BN losing the next general election.

“Maybe he foresees the next election, if BN is still under Najib, they might lose anyway. Maybe he is still taking that calculation, [that] maybe [he] can form some sort of partnership or cooperation with the opposition, [that] there might be some sort of coalition government,” the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia academic told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

Faisal said that for Dr Mahathir to succeed in his goal, the Kedah-born needs to change his plan of keeping BN in power and instead work to convince 5 per cent of its supporters in marginal seats to vote for the opposition.

“The only way to change Najib is [through] change of government. Other than that, I don’t see any possibility that Najib might be removed,” the UKM lecturer said.

Unlike the other two, Prof James Chin said Dr Mahathir’s collaboration did not smack of desperation, but was part of a wider design to make his son and former Kedah mentri besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir the country’s prime minister one day.

“Mahathir never does anything without calculations. He needs the opposition for the numbers since he is losing ground among the Malay community,” the director of University of Tasmania’s Asia Institute told Malay Mail Online in an email interview.



But even Chin was sceptical that Dr Mahathir’s machinations will work.

“For ordinary Umno members they are angry and confused, for the simple reason that they have been told since independence that DAP is about destroying Malay special rights and getting rid of the Malay sultans and Umno can only protect the Malays.

“Now Mahathir is singing a different tune and I am not sure they can take it,” he said.

Chin said Dr Mahathir’s reputation of adopting an “anything goes as long as I get my way politically” approach will return to bite him in the long-run as he will be forever tagged a hypocrite for teaming up with political adversaries to topple the prime minister.“The thing now is numbers, can Mahathir rally the rural Malays? If not, Najib survives,” he said.