4th PM's legislation effs 7th PM today

FMT:

Najib: Dr M can’t fight PPBM because of his own past

Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the PPBM chairman’s office on Friday. He insists he is still party chairman 

PETALING JAYA: Dr Mahathir Mohamad will be unable to challenge PPBM’s decision to terminate his membership because of a law that Mahathir himself caused to be amended at the height of an Umno power struggle in the late 1980s, Najib Razak said today.

Najib, a former Umno president, said Mahathir had caused Section 18c of the Societies Act 1966 to be amended, allowing him to form Umno (BARU) after Umno had been ordered to be deregistered.

The amendment stipulated that a party’s decision is final and could not be challenged in court.

Umno was declared illegal after the result of the party elections in 1987, when Mahathir’s presidency was challenged by his rival Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

Najib said Mahathir was making an excuse when he said he did not want to drag his membership problem to court because he did not trust the judiciary under the Perikatan Nasional government.

Mahathir’s excuse was a lie, he said. “The seventh PM (Mahathir) cannot challenge the decision at court due to the past actions of the fourth PM (also Mahathir). That is correct,” he said in a Facebook post referring to Mahathir’s two separate tenures as prime minister.

Mahathir’s membership in PPBM was terminated by the party on Thursday, togerther with four other MPs who had sat with opposition members at the Dewan Rakyat sitting of May 18.

The other four were Mahathir’s son Mukhriz, Amiruddin Hamzah, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and Maszlee Malik.

Mahathir has insisted he remains the party’s chairman. However, PPBM president Muhyiddin Yassin has declared himself as acting chairman as Mahathir had resigned the chairmanship on Feb 24.

Najib said that should Mahathir bring the membership issue to court, his membership would be automatically terminated, as stipulated in the law and the party’s constitution.

“And this is what Mahathir did not reveal,” Najib said. “If the seventh PM wants to blame anyone, he should blame the fourth PM. Don’t give the excuse that you do not trust the courts.”

DAP should wake up and distance itself from Mahathir

Star Online:

Time to move on beyond Dr M

By Terence Fernandez

TO quote horror novelist Stephen King: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”

The political goings-on since the beginning of the year that culminated with the formation of an unelected government in the midst of a killer pandemic, could well be off the pages of one of King’s disturbing novels.

At the center of this horror story is an oracle whom everyone gravitates to, like a killer clown in the sewers who lures children with candy and then devours them.

One is certainly not equating Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to the IT villain, but one must marvel that at 95, he is still regarded by many as a ‘King’ maker (pun and reference unintended, although in Dr Mahathir’s mind, he is the King). A unifier and divider at the same time.

That the likes of DAP and Parti Amanah Negara are still looking at him to form a new coalition to oust the Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin-led Perikatan Nasional government calls into question the judgment of some of these political leaders.

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, however, seems to be the wiser one who subscribes to King’s philosophy and seems to be distancing himself from Dr Mahathir.

His absence at Dr Mahathir’s May 18 press conference with other Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders, and staking his claim as the leader of the Opposition, to many is an indication of Anwar finally having learnt his lesson.

Anwar, after all, was the one who got burnt the most by his former mentor.

If Dr Mahathir had stuck to the leadership handover agreement, the “Sheraton Move” may never had happened and the Pakatan government could have just focused on fulfilling its election pledges, fixing the economy, and battling Covid-19 – for which then Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad had already been putting measures in place.

In any case, with 114 of the 222 MPs in Parliament whose support Dr Mahathir now claims to enjoy, many parties and political leaders are considering allegiance towards him, and to make him Prime Minister for the third time!

DAP and Amanah hope third time’s the charm. Unfortunately for the DAP, Dr Mahathir has demonstrated that his preference for administering Malaysia is via a single race dominated political leadership – not a leadership that incorporates the best of our diversity even if this route would be more effective in alleviating the lot of poor Malays whom Dr Mahathir has been championing for 70 years.

However, the prospects of new powers and a shift of the political spectrum is too tempting to ignore by those seeking to realign with Dr Mahathir.

A promise of deputy premiership to Parti Warisan Sabah that seems to hold the decisive vote, for instance, could see Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal as Deputy Prime Minister and probably due to Dr Mahathir’s age and health, becoming the first Prime Minister from East Malaysia in the next few years.

A mouth-watering scenario indeed. But as the saying goes, when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Which is why it is probably best that Dr Mahathir, who has been ousted as chairman of his own party, now play the role of elder statesman and look at ways to unite a polarised nation.

But this may be too much to ask of a man who was largely responsible for this polarisation to begin with.

So, perhaps those who aspire to lead should first exercise sound judgment, or the very least, stop using this old man as a crutch to move forward politically.

why DAP leaders are either stupid or greedy in STILL wanting to ally with treacherous anti-DAP Mahathir

READ ALSO: Going beyond Dr Mahathir’s 1.0 quest for vengeance

Dr Mahathir has been the boon and bane of Malaysia throughout his checkered political life. We have benefited from his leadership which made us an economic powerhouse, his return to politics two years ago helped to some measure achieve justice and restitution to the billion-ringgit kleptocracy that was 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

But economic disparity among the races, poorer Malays, the suppression of basic and democratic rights and freedoms, and institutional corruption also mark his legacy. Several of those leaders seeking his return now were at the wrong end of his leadership in the 1980s and 1990s and have paid a personal price.

It is time for the nation with a new generation of Malaysians to move beyond Dr Mahathir and for politicians to learn that they cannot take him at his word.

We should take a leaf out of this “Look East” policy and apply the Konmari method introduced by the “Queen of Declutter”, Marie Kondo. She advises us to “thank” the items that have served us which we now wish to put away as they do not spark joy anymore.

She specifically advises tidying up sentimental items last as they would be the most difficult to discard.

With that, we thank Dr Mahathir for his services to this nation, but we also tell him he does not spark joy anymore and this country needs to learn to move on without him, especially when proof of his mortality is looming.

Mahathir under delusion (revised) PKR still backs him

Star Online:

Dr M fights back like an angry tiger

by Joceline Tan

If the rumours swirling the whole of yesterday had come true, the country would be left with a hung Parliament today.

A minister and a deputy minister were supposed to announce that they were crossing over to join Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s camp.

It was supposed to have happened at 5pm, but 5pm ticked by with no sign of them or any word from the pair.

For a while, the fate of the Perikatan Nasional government seemed to be in the hands of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof and Deputy Works Minister Datuk Dr Shahruddin Md Salleh.

For days, there had been speculation that Camp Mahathir had promised to make Mohd Redzuan the next deputy prime minister, while Dr Shahruddin was offered a full ministership apart from “remunerations”.

The pair have not personally quashed the rumours, although Mohd Redzuan’s political secretary has denied that his boss had called for any press conference and that Mohd Redzuan was in fact under quarantine.

But as many noted, it was not an outright denial that he would jump ship.

There were also claims that Women and Family Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Rina Harun was also jumping, but she killed the rumour by turning up alongside party secretary-general Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

The moment has passed but the crisis has deepened.

The infighting in Bersatu has worsened and it is ironic that the party, which has managed to produce two prime ministers in its brief existence, is falling to pieces.

The war between Dr Mahathir and Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is destroying the party and threatening to drag the country into yet another political upheaval.

“It is moving to a dangerous level. It was bubbling beneath the surface and has finally boiled over.

“A small party like ours cannot survive this type of infighting,” said a senior Bersatu figure close to both Dr Mahathir and Muhyiddin.

[...]

Yesterday’s event provided a glimpse of Dr Mahathir’s Plan B against Muhyiddin.

It is evident that his Plan A – the motion of no confidence against Muhyiddin – is likely to fail because PKR parliamentarians are not with Dr Mahathir.

There is tremendous resistance in PKR about working with Dr Mahathir again.

“Only the biggest fools will believe Dr Mahathir again after what happened,” said an MP from PKR, who declined to be named because they had been told not to speak on the issue.

The distrust of Dr Mahathir runs deep in PKR after the way Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was “played out” of the premiership.

“We don’t want Dr Mahathir as prime minister. All of us are very clear that Anwar is our prime minister candidate,” said Perak PKR chief Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak.

Without PKR, Dr Mahathir does not have the numbers needed for his motion to go through.

Dr Mahathir’s Plan B was probably hatched after the May 18 parliament sitting when he saw that Muhyiddin only had 113 MPs on his side.

He realised that he only required three MPs to cross over and the ruling coalition would collapse. That was when he decided to go on a “fishing trip” for MPs to come onboard.

It is not easy to catch the big fish, but he is not the sort to give up without a fight.