Zaid Wants a 100-Year-Old Mahathir for PM — Proof Our Older Generation Is Irredeemably Ignorant and Lost

OPINION | Zaid Wants a 100-Year-Old Mahathir for PM — Proof Our Older Generation Is Irredeemably Ignorant and Lost


20 Nov 2025 • 8:00 AM MYT


TheRealNehruism
An award-winning Newswav creator, Bebas News columnist & ex-FMT columnist

Image credit: Malay Mail / Sinar Daily


Mahathir can’t even bend down to put on his shoes. At his age, simply staying awake for more than half a day is probably a stressful affair.


And yet, Zaid Ibrahim now believes that a 100-year-old Mahathir is the best person to become prime minister if the opposition wins the next election, a proposal he made while also urging Mahathir to pardon Najib Razak should he return to power—something he spelled out openly in this statement.


Zaid’s suggestion only confirms for me that much of the older generation is now bereft of any real value. Anyone who looks at a nation of 33 million people and concludes that the only man capable of running it is a centenarian who can scarcely stay awake is not a generation equipped for success, dignity, or meaningful happiness.


This older generation cannot teach you how to win through merit, how to build value, how to compete honestly, or how to rise through worth.


They only know how to succeed through corruption, cheating, manipulation, debt accumulation, and exploitation.


And as for happiness—can anyone point to a single Malaysian above the age of 70 who looks like they’ve made peace with themselves or with the world? I struggle to find such a person even globally.


To be like Mahathir—approaching a hundred, possessing every imaginable form of wealth, status, fame, and legacy—and still craving more, still unable to let go, is proof of a life lived without understanding meaning or purpose. It is to reach the end of life as ignorant of its essence as one was at the beginning.


Yet Zaid and many from his generation look at this and call it leadership.


Worse, they insist that Mahathir should return under the “Payung Melayu” coalition, which they argue could restore Malay political dominance and even forgive Najib Razak as a political bargaining chip. They even appeal to PAS and Bersatu leaders to give way and reinstall Mahathir as prime minister once more.


This should tell the younger generation everything we need to know:


We cannot look to them for guidance anymore.
When a Generation Degenerates, Its Values Become Poison

There is an old Chinese saying: “Wealth does not pass three generations.”


It is not merely about wealth.


It is about virtue.


It is about ethos.


It is about the internal compass that enables a person or a society to thrive over time.


Every three generations, the values that sustain meaning and success are often degraded by a generation that can no longer uphold them.


If, at that point, the next generation blindly inherits their worldview, they too will decline. You cannot drink from a poisoned well and expect to grow stronger.


Mahathir and Zaid’s generation inherited a Malaysia rich in trust, unity, optimism, and societal potential.


What have they passed on?


A nation divided.


A system corrupted.


A culture hollowed out.


A future weighed down with debt.


If we emulate them, we will become them—lost, confused, addicted to status, and unable to let go even at the doorstep of death.

And the World Confirms It: Young People Everywhere Are Rising Up

Look around the world today. We are on the brink of conflict, buried under unhappiness and debt. This is the handiwork of the older generation.


And young people have had enough.


Across the world—from Madagascar to Indonesia, Nepal to Bangladesh—the younger generation is rising up to overthrow the rule of the old.


This global Gen Z uprising, unprecedented in scale and coordination, is well-documented here.


Young people today understand democratic rights better than their predecessors. They are more connected, more informed, and more willing to demand accountability. They are also the ones who suffer the most from economic decline, corruption, and mismanagement—the legacies left behind by ageing leaders clinging to power long past their expiry.


In Nepal and Madagascar, youth-driven movements have toppled entire governments.


In Kenya, young people forced the president to withdraw a tax bill.


In Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco, Peru, and beyond, youth movements continue to reshape national politics.


Even if the outcomes are uneven, one fact is clear:


The younger generation no longer believes the older generation is capable of leading them into the future.



And when I look at Zaid pleading for Mahathir’s return, I begin to see the same validity in their mutiny.

Age Does Not Create Wisdom—Practise Does

We often assume that older leaders should be wiser because they have more years of experience.


But time alone does not create wisdom.


A person who spends decades practising corruption, dishonesty, shortcuts, vanity, and self-importance becomes more skilful at corruption, dishonesty, shortcuts, vanity, and self-importance. They do not become wiser—only more entrenched in their delusions.


If one spends a lifetime believing the wrong things—


that value doesn’t matter,


that corruption is normal,


that titles can be bought,


that wealth is justification,


that status can substitute for competence—


then age gives them nothing but grey hair, disease, and proximity to death.


And if we follow their ideals, we will grow old like them: spiritually hollow, materially anxious, desperate for relevance, afraid of mortality, and ultimately ignorant even at the door of death.

A New Generation Must Now Choose Its Teachers Wisely

We must accept the uncomfortable truth:


The generation before us is not worth imitating.


Most of what they consider right, proper, and dignified is neither right, proper, nor dignified. The proof lies in their own lives. Look at them and ask yourself:


Do you want to age into what they have become?


If your answer is no, then we must discard most of what they taught us.


We need to rebuild our moral compass independently.


We need to relearn what value means.


We need to rediscover what purpose feels like.


We need to reconstruct what success requires.


We need to redefine what happiness truly is.


If we fail to do this, we too will arrive at a hundred years old—


still desperate,


still hollow,


still clinging to power,


still unable to let go,


still ignorant of life’s meaning even as it slips away.


Malaysia deserves better.


The young deserve better.


And the future demands better.