Despite anti-Najib stance, Dr M says won’t work with Pakatan

(Malay Mail Online) – Despite his call for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to resign, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today he would not work with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to achieve his goal.

“I’m not working with anyone to take down Najib, not the opposition.

“The problem is within Umno itself,” Dr Mahathir told reporters when met on the sidelines of an anti-war forum here.

Yesterday, DAP’s veteran leader Lim Kit Siang said he is willing to work even with his nemesis Dr Mahathir in order to “save Malaysia” from the current policies that might plunge the country “down a slippery slope”.

Speaking to Malaysian students in Alexandria, Egypt yesterday, the Gelang Patah MP said the country is heading towards a “failed state” in a variety of areas, including nation building, politics, economics and education.

“For this formidable task, we must be prepared to put our differences in the past to one side and concentrate all our energies on one common agenda, to save Malaysia from all centrifugal forces to tear the country asunder.

“On this agenda, I am prepared even to work with Tun Mahathir to ‘Save Malaysia’,” said Lim, referring to the country’s longest-serving prime minister.

The DAP parliamentary leader once again touted his bipartisan “Save Malaysia” coalition, urging that the coalition’s first agenda must be to release Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim after he was jailed for sodomy, and get him back into mainstream Malaysian politics.

Lim, however, insisted that the pact is a “grand coalition” post-Barisan Nasional and post-Pakatan Rakyat, unlike a unity government between PAS and Umno.

Lim first mooted the “Save Malaysia” coalition as his own personal idea last month, saying that the pact’s objectives would be specifically to defend the Federal Constitution and uphold the rule of law.

On Friday, former Umno minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim suggested that Dr Mahathir and Anwar should bury the hatchet on various issues, and work with senior Kelantan Umno lawmaker Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to boot Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak from government.

Dr Mahathir, however, has claimed ignorance of the proposal.