MISCHIEF MAKER MAHATHIR JUST WANTS TO SAVE HIS LEGACY?

Christopher Fernandez, The Ant Daily

Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been busy flexing his political muscles against beleaguered prime minister Najib Razak of late in what several analysts consider as a last-ditch bid to save his legacy.

In his condolence message to the late Lee Kuan Yew, Najib wrote that he wished Hsien Loong (the present prime minister of Singapore and Lee’s son) and his family his deepest condolence and pointedly concluded that Lee had managed to keep his legacy “intact”.

This was a subtle warning for Mahathir to heed as the irate former prime minister is in a battle to try and evict Najib from office over a number of contentious issues from which Najib has been quite wisely defending himself.

Mahathir is fuming and upset over the 1MDB fiasco, the GST, BR1M, the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya, the crooked bridge with Singapore that is not being built and a growing list of other issues that has caused him to go up-in-arms with Najib.

But is Mahathir someone who aspires for the higher good of the nation or is he just a mischief maker? Is he trying in actual fact and truth to try and augment and ensure his legacy is intact, like the late Lee’s, as many critics contend that Mahathir’s legacy is in tatters?

The truth over Mahathir’s actual intent and purposes in wanting to get rid of Najib will never be really known just like a number of other raging issues that have been cleverly and slyly swept under the carpet and hidden from public viewing and discourse during his term as prime minister.

Malaysians will never really get to know what Mahathir is actually up to just as many incidences and occurrences of interest to the general public were wiped out from getting to the consumption of the public’s diet fed by the government-controlled media.

But now with the advent of social media, it is easy to see that Mahathir still wields considerable influence in this country and is now hard at work tinkering with the levers of political power and control to achieve his hopes and ambitions.

Mahathir is known to silence dissent and to come down hard on critics and opponents and it will be interesting to see how he fares against Najib, and how they measure up.

A battle royale is ensuing between Mahathir and Najib and like the proverbial Malay saying: “Gajah sama gajah berjuang, pelanduk mati di tengah-tengah.” (When two elephants fight, it’s the mousedeer in between that is trampled to death.)

This simply means that as the battle between Mahathir and Najib heats up, it is the rakyat who will suffer.

There is no mistaking that Mahathir, in a bid to save his legacy, is going all out to defeat Najib.

Malaysians are already suffering from price hikes and other issues of late and certainly do not wish to see Mahathir pile up the misery by adding fuel to fire to try and make Najib’s life even more miserable which would just prompt him to dig in deeper and prolong the leadership crisis in this country.

Mahathir seemingly is behaving in a high-handed, selfish and self-seeking manner although his term of office as prime minister ended more than a decade ago but still believes like a spoilt child that he is in power and must have his way.

It’s time once and for all for Najib as the rightfully and lawfully-elected prime minister to put Mahathir firmly in his place and continue to do what he has got from the mandate given to him in the last general election and not to stoop to any individual.