With the de facto leader of PKR in jail, Dr Mahathir has now taken over as the de facto Opposition Leader from Anwar Ibrahim with full support by even those like Azmin who are Anwar Ibrahim diehards. And Dr Mahathir was not allegorical or speaking in parable when today he announced that Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is going to make a better Prime Minister.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
There are those who accuse Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad of being anti-Hadith, which in Sunni Islam is considered a ‘crime’. They point out that Dr Mahathir ‘protected’ Kassim Ahmad when the former was Prime Minister and because of that the authorities could not arrest and prosecute the latter.
I have personally heard Dr Mahathir talk and what he said was some of the Hadith need to be reinterpreted. So Dr Mahathir did not say reject all Hadith in toto. He said reinterpret some of the Hadith because not all make sense and some are actually quite silly and illogical.
Dr Mahathir also pointed out that the Qur’an should not just be read literally. Not everything in the Qur’an has a literal meaning. Some are actually allegorical. Hence Muslims must understand which part of the Qur’an has a literal meaning and which is allegorical.
Dr Mahathir is a master of literal meanings, allegorical meanings, insinuations, innuendoes and hidden messages. He can say one thing and mean the opposite — or sindir, as the Malays would say. It is entirely up to you how you wish to interpret what Dr Mahathir says but you need to know the man and know the issue well enough before you can decipher his sound bites.
He can even pose a question while he actually wants to make a statement. Instead of saying that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak must go he might ask you your opinion and whether you think that Najib must go. If you say ‘yes’ he will then ask you why you say ‘yes’. He actually already knows the answer. He just wants you to say it as if this idea came from you and not from him.
Back in the 1980s one of Dr Mahathir’s key psy-war experts told me that the Prime Minister is a doctor so he addresses problems the way a doctor would. If you go to Dr Mahathir with a headache he would take a hammer and whack you on your knee. That would hurt more than the headache so he makes you refocus on a greater pain while you forget the original and lesser pain.
We both had a good laugh but I do not really know whether he meant it as a joke or whether he was serious that this is the way Dr Mahathir solves problems. Anyway, it makes sense. If you have a problem with internal unity you fabricate an external enemy and present this as a greater threat to the party’s or country’s survival so that people would set aside their differences and unite for mutual benefit.
I call this WMD — weapon of mass distraction. You distract people with an even bigger problem so that even your enemies stand behind you and support you. They would overlook your weaknesses and forgive your transgressions because you are now serving an even greater cause and interest and must be supported.
For years DAP, PKR and PAS whacked Dr Mahathir and called him all sorts of nasty names. They united under Barisan Alternatif with only one objective in mind, to oust Dr Mahathir. They promised that the day Umno and Barisan Nasional are ousted Dr Mahathir would be punished and would be sent to jail till the day he died. They will never forget or forgive what Dr Mahathir did to the country: tiada maaf bagi mu.
Dr Mahathir stepped down in 2003 and handed the country to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. But that does not get Dr Mahathir off the hook. He must still pay for his many crimes and pay dearly at that, too. This was the promise that the opposition made.
Then, just three years on in June 2006, the opposition rallied behind Dr Mahathir and supported him in his move to oust Pak Lah. Dr Mahathir was no longer the demon they said he was. Dr Mahathir is the saviour, the man who is going to save the country. Mahfuz Omar even told Dr Mahathir on 24th June 2006 that PAS would be organising rallies all over Malaysia and they wanted to invite the Grand Old Man of Malaysian politics as the VVIP guest to speak at these rallies.
Dr Mahathir told Mahfuz that if PAS organises these rallies he would not be able to attend. He would not attend any political party event. But if they were organised by a non-political party organisation then he would agree. Dr Mahathir then pointed to me and asked Mahfuz to talk to me.
Mahfuz quickly pulled me aside to discuss the matter. Can Malaysia Today organise these rallies? If PAS does it Dr Mahathir would not agree but if it were Malaysia Today then Dr Mahathir would attend. PAS would do all the work. Malaysia Today just needs to lend its name to the event.
I did not pursue the matter but after that 24th June 2006 maiden event in the Kelab Century Paradise events were organised in many parts of Malaysia between 2006 and 2007.
Basically, the message was, to save Umno, Pak Lah must go. If not Umno is going to lose power. Hence Umno’s survival depended on the Prime Minister getting kicked out. And various issues were raised to support this argument — the Crooked Bridge, the double-tracking railway, the Oil-for-Food scandal, the ‘Fourth Floor’ boys, the broken promises Pak Lah made to Dr Mahathir, the Prime Minister’s new private jet, the Prime Minister’s lavish home in Australia, Patrick Lim a.k.a. Patrick Badawi, the Prime Minister’s son-in-law, etc.
These are scandals the Prime Minister must answer to and are criminal in nature. Pak Lah eventually left office but not a single criminal charge was brought against him, his son-in-law or any of the ‘Fourth Floor’ boys. Have all these people been forgiven for these crimes or were there really no crimes in the first place?
Today, we are seeing the same pattern and the same script being played out. The only slight difference is the Oil-for-Food scandal has been replaced with the 1MDB scandal. As for most of the other issues they are basically a repetition of 2006. Patrick Lim is now Jho Loh. The Prime Minister’s new jet is still there, as is the Crooked Bridge and the railway. Rosmah Mansor has replaced Khairy Jamaluddin as the most hated person behind the Prime Minister. The PMO of Najib has replaced the ‘Fourth Floor’ of Pak Lah.
And do you know what is most eerie? The key man behind the ‘Fourth Floor’, Dr Liew Boon-Horng, was killed under most bizarre and mysterious circumstances in a freak accident ten years ago in December 2005, just like Jamaluddin Jarjis, the key man behind the PMO, was killed recently in yet another mysterious helicopter crash.
I suppose we can always chalk that up to a bizarre coincidence of lightning striking twice. No doubt there was talk amongst the pro-Mahathir group that Dr Liew was behind the move to ‘kill’ Proton with his plan to liberalise the motor industry, and Jamaluddin, too, was accused of the same thing and was accused of blocking the RM1.7 billion bailout that Proton asked for. But this, again, can be purely coincidental.
Anyway, today, Dr Mahathir did not mince his words or speak allegorically or in parables. The Prime Minister must be ousted. And, yet again, just like in 2006, the opposition is 100% behind Dr Mahathir in his effort to oust Najib. Mahfuz went to see him. Azmin Ali went to see him. Everyone who is anyone in the opposition is rallying behind Dr Mahathir.
With the de facto leader of PKR in jail, Dr Mahathir has now taken over as the de facto Opposition Leader from Anwar Ibrahim with full support by even those like Azmin who are Anwar Ibrahim diehards. And Dr Mahathir was not allegorical or speaking in parables when today he announced that Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is going to make a better Prime Minister.
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