Mahathir painted himself into a corner

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The Triangle Power Struggle – Mahathir Trapped Himself By Announcing His Refusal To Work With UMNO:

WTF? How did I end up eff-ing my glorious imperial own self? 

Like the Chinese ancient Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Malaysia’s current political crisis has transformed into three major coalitions fighting for the throne. The triangle power struggle consists of Mahathir’s coalition (63 MPs), Anwar’s coalition (92 MPs) and BN-PAS’ coalition (61 MPs). None of them has the magic number of 112 MPs required to form a simple-majority government.

chaam Mah Har Thia ay t'au 👎😈😂😂😂  

The current situation is so fluid – and exciting – that any articles written could be obsolete by the time it’s published. Just when it was thought that Mahathir Mohamad, the 7th prime minister who suddenly resigned, but appointed by the Agong (King) as the interim prime minister, would be crowned again as the 8th prime minister, it’s now possible that the 94-year-old man could be jobless.

the old man could be jobless?
wakakaka 

And all that could happen within this week alone. The triangle power struggle emerges primarily because Mahathir wanted to create what is known as a “unity government”, an ideal government where all the good, bad and ugly politicians from both sides of the political divide have a chance to be included in the government. In short, it’s one big happy family without the Opposition.



Unfortunately, there’s one huge problem. The country is plagued with racism, discrimination, extremism, xenophobia and all forms of bigotry that you can find in the dictionary, thanks to over 60 years of one-party rule. Coincidentally, Mahathir, the man who now wants a unity government is also the same man who had spent more than a third of those 60 years destroying the once harmony country.

It’s not hard to understand why so many people distrust Mahathir to lead a unity government. He was the man who practised dictatorial-style leadership and gerrymandering and misused institutional tools to manipulate an electoral process to stay in power for 22 years (from 1981 to 2003). And now he expects people to give him a blank cheque to rule until his death like Peter the Great?

Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition refuses to work with BN-PAS coalition and vice-versa. Both coalitions accuse each other of being racist, extremist and whatnot. At the same time, Mahathir appeared in television yesterday (Feb 26) saying UMNO (a component party of BN) cannot join his unity government. The old man, however, welcome UMNO members but not UMNO party.



Therefore, all bets were off. The alliance of BN (Barisan Nasional) and PAS Islamist party immediately withdrew their support for Mahathir as the leader of the country. To make matters worse for Mahathir, Anwar’s PH coalition also made a stunning U-turn about supporting the old man after he refused to chair the Harapan presidential council meeting on Tuesday (Feb 25).

Mahathir’s refusal to attend the meeting means he had no intention of restoring the previous PH-led government, which also means all the pre-election manifesto would be thrown into the trash bin. Mahathir only wants PH’s powerful bloc of 92 votes, but not the manifesto. He wanted the free hand to explore a new unprecedented political landscape that has not been tested.

Hence, the remaining component parties of PH (Pakatan Harapan) – PKR, DAP and Amanah – were left with no choice but to nominate PKR president Anwar Ibrahim as the next prime minister. In what appears to be proof that the coup circus was orchestrated by Mahathir himself, the old fox has today decided to return back to his party Bersatu and resumes his chairmanship.



Mahathir’s support came from Bersatu (25 MPs), Azmin Ali and his 10 PKR traitors (11 MPs), Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs). Yes, despite whining and crying about being backstabbed by Azmin, astonishingly, the former deputy PKR president is about to join Bersatu, which would enlarge Mahathir’s party to 36 MPs, just 3 seats less than UMNO.

One of the reasons Pakatan Harapan decided to nominate Anwar, instead of Mahathir as promised earlier, was that the former premier appeared to have trapped himself when he announced to the world that there’s no way he can work with the corrupt UMNO party. That would mean Mahathir will not be able to leverage on BN-PAS’ 61 MPs to achieve his ambitious unity government.

That explains why Anwar’s coalition was incredibly happy when they went to see the King yesterday. Pakatan Harapan’s 92 MPs have a superior number than Mahathir’s 63 MPs. For Mahathir to go back to UMNO and beg for support would be extremely humiliating. Anwar probably was betting that Mahathir would be forced to rejoin PH coalition – quite a clever strategy.



In the eventuality that Mahathir abandons or modify his unity government concept to suit PH’s agenda, everything would be back to its previous configuration, allowing the PH coalition to rule again. Anwar’s camp was also betting that Mahathir would not dare go for a snap election, as doing so would certainly allow the return of BN – and Najib Razak – to the federal government.

But it seems Anwar had chosen to count his chickens before they hatch – again. Mahathir, in his desperation, may go bonkers and work with UMNO after all. The state of Johor has already collapsed after Mahathir’s party decided to work with UMNO in forming a new state government – another

betrayal. Without approval from the top, Bersatu Johor will not dare switch sides.

After meeting with the King today, Mahathir pre-emptively revealed that a special Dewan Rakyat sitting will be convened on March 2 to see who will be the next prime minister. Mr. Mahathir has also confirmed that Bersatu (PPBM) president Muhyiddin Yassin will be one of the candidates to be offered as the prime minister in the Lower House of Representative.

The biggest giveaway that Mahathir was the hidden hand behind the recent coup to topple his own Pakatan Harapan government is that he now says he can accept if Muhyiddin wants to work with UMNO en bloc. Exactly how could he return to his party after allegedly being betrayed by Muhyiddin, let alone endorsing his lieutenant’s plan to join forces with UMNO?

Now that the King has told Mahathir to fly kite with his unity government, the old fox is tangled in his own web of deceit. If indeed he was betrayed by Muhyiddin and Azmin, he could easily ordered Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs) to support Anwar’s coalition, instantly gives Pakatan Harapan a comfortable simple majority of 119 parliamentary seats.

Even the idea of going to the Dewan Rakyat to elect among its members a prime minister is unconstitutional. The King must first appoint a prime minister among the 222 MPs whom in his judgement is likely to command the confidence of the majority. The Lower House of Representative is just a place to test whether an “existing” premier enjoys the majority support.

ditaja olih rakyat yang radang 😅😜👍 

Obviously, Muhyiddin is the backup plan. The party’s bloc of 63 MPs, if combined with UMNO-PAS’ 61 MPs, will be sufficient to form a new government with a majority of 124 parliamentary seats. However, that depends on whether UMNO-PAS is ready to play ball. Based on UMNO’s current preparation for a snap election, it doesn’t seem so.

The Johor move was a gift to impress upon UMNO-PAS to support Muhyiddin as the next prime minister, instead of Anwar Ibrahim.

The wisdom behind that was that if Muhyiddin fails to win the beauty contest in the Dewan Rakyat, then a snap election will be called. If that happens, the state of Johor won’t matter because Bersatu on its own will be wiped out completely.

Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan has until March 2 to swing kingmakers Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs) to his camp. He could, for example, offer deputy prime minister posts for them. Anwar probably should call Mahathir’s bluff that he’s willing to let crooks like Najib Razak and Zahid Hamidi free after all the efforts he had done to prosecute them.



When Mahathir decided to play the coup game, there’s no turning back. This is perhaps his final war for glory, or death. The 94-year-old fox will play all his trump cards to win the throne. However, there’s something that Mahathir can never possess – the awesome brotherhood and loyalty displayed by Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng and Mat Sabu (all of them were once prisoners of Mahathir) – built since 1998.