What goes around, comes around, dear Mahathir

In a media interview, Tun Mahathir insisted that in order to overthrow the current government, he, together with his bloc, will not collaborate with opposition leader Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim simply because the latter “does not want” him to lead the country for the ‘offered’ term of six months. Tun Mahathir told that instead of naming himself PM candidate, Lim Guan Eng proposed that another name person, i.e. Dato’ Seri Shafie Apdal, to be named instead. Tun Mahathir claimed that he became frustrated when Lim suddenly changed his preference to Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim in the Pakatan Harapan (PH)’s presidential meeting that he was not invited to attend. According to Tun Mahathir, though he is fine with being not the chosen one, he is worried that those who would like to join him still refuse to support Anwar Ibrahim, while implying Sabah and Sarawak’s pertinent roles to justify his selection of Shafie Apdal.

Holding onto the impression that his hands are tight, Tun Mahathir keeps on saying that he had no choice but to follow Lim’s advice to pick Shafie Apdal, but then was ‘betrayed’ by Lim when the latter finally decided to side with Anwar Ibrahim as PM candidate. Similarly, in the Parliament on 21 July 2020, Tun Mahathir played victim again, claiming that he was betrayed by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his camp in Bersatu and the treacherous coup of the “backdoor government” initiated on 23 February 2020 at the Sheraton Hotel. He also said that due to the tyranny, he had no choice but to step down and all of PH’s executive members had to also lose their positions. Interestingly, the irony of his speech was on how the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) government misuses its power to oppress those who oppose PN such as his “Bersatu Blackout” members and other opposition members. Has he forgotten about what he did to Anwar Ibrahim and the reformists decades ago? Had he not done the same when he was the 4th Prime Minister that was then emulated by his successors the 6th Prime Minister and now by the 8th Prime Minister? Well, playing victim when he, too, was a dictatorial and oppressive leader, does not make him any better than Muhyiddin Yassin.

By Adillah Jaafar

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