The kris is drawn.
Mahathir has made it clear. He wants Najib out.
On advising Najib through more diplomatic channels, he says he has been doing it "quietly" and through "intermediaries" for four years. That mode is now declared over.
Will Najib draw his own kris ?
Other Malays have drawn theirs.
The Hon. Secretary of Veteran UMNO Malaysia had quickly posted his anti-Mahathir comments, calling him "hysterical", on the internet, with or without the Chairman's consent, I don't know. Certainly I don't support his comments.
Other bloggers have quickly thrown their weights behind Najib. This afternoon before the start of the Taman Dato' Shahbandar Branch Annual General Meeting, Kudus the Ketua Cawangan made some nasty comments about Mahathir to me. I retorted what Mahathir has said contains nothing new to the public. I said I agree to the points raised. I said the audience is not just the 3.5 UMNO members, it's also the rest of the 29 million Malaysians. I said Najib is free to answer the questions raised by Mahathir. Kudus was also free to answer back my defence of Mahathir. He didn't.
The old man is concerned with the political fate of the Malays. That was what he said, and I buy that. In his estimation Najib is not doing a good job of it. He says Najib has "too many scandals" right now to remain an effective leader. The public outcry about 1MDB, the Altantuya case, and the purchase of the aircraft in particular demand answers. The government's, and by the same token Najib's, answers haven't been forthright. Mahathir thinks this spells trouble for UMNO in GE 14. This spells trouble for the Malays.
Mahathir wasn't a spring chicken when he became PM on 16th. July 1981. He was 56. But the 21 years 11 months and 6 days he was PM is the longest ever of the 6 PM's.
Mahathir went through 9 General Elections, from no. 2 to no. 10. He won his first election as MP for Kota Star Selatan, Kedah, but lost his second try on 10th. May 1969 because the Chinese voters deserted him for his strident pro-Malay stance. When the Kuala Lumpur race riots broke out three days after DAP made big gains in Selangor (and some other states like Penang), copies of Mahathir's open letter criticising the Tunku were widely circulated in KL. It earned Mahathir a wide following, especially from the young Malays. But it also earned him the wrath of the Tunku and got him sacked from UMNO.
He was an "outsider" from 1969 to 1974.
In 1972 Razak, through Harun Idris, brought Mahathir back into UMNO. He was 48. Three months later he was voted into the party's Supreme Council with the highest votes, but lost the VP contest to Sardon, Hussein Onn and Ghaffar Baba. He was made a Senator.
In GE 4 on 24th. August 1974 Mahathir won the Kubang Pasu Parliamentry seat unopposed and made the Education Minister, considered a senior portfolio and a stepping stone to premiership.
At age 50 in 1975 Mahathir was elected UMNO's VP together with Tengku Razaleigh and Ghaffar Baba.
On 14th. January 1976 Razak died in London. Hussein became PM, and after a 10-day deliberation, appointed Mahathir DPM. Ghaffar, who was once Acting PM when Razak went abroad for an extended period, resigned.
In 1978 Mahathir was elected Deputy President of UMNO.
In January 1981 Mahathir was made Acting PM when Hussein went to London for heart surgery. In July the same year Hussein resigned as PM because of ill health. Mahathir became PM 12 years after he was sacked from the party.
You can list all that he has done as PM for 22 years, both the monumental and the mundane. Admittedly they're not all good. Nothing is ever "all good". Remember the Memali case in Kedah, the deregisteration of UMNO in 1987, and the financial crisis that pitted Malaysia against IMF and the World Bank, and the Anwar case ? But the Malay agenda had followed "the Malay Dilemma". The old man and the Malays are in the same boat. He can't be dismissed just like that. He deserves being listened to. He has earned that.
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