Dr Mahathir to save UMNO with opposition’s help?

Najib Razak is under the threat a No-Confidence vote at the initiative of Tun Dr Mahathir who will be inviting opposition MPs to add to the numbers to carry the day. The objective of the vote is to remove Najib in order to save UMNO. With Najib gone there is a chance for Mahathir to repair whatever damage Najib has done to UMNO and still retain power at the expense of the opposition.

If Najib remains as the Prime Minister, Barisan Nasional is sure to lose to the opposition at the next General Elections, according to Mahathir. So he expects Opposition MPs will vote in droves to answer Mahathir’s call to remove Najib? Does that make sense?

I was having a good chuckle over this with several other old farts at the IKEA cheap breakfast on Sunday morning. Over free coffee we reminisced the old days when Mahathir was a tyrant to the opposition. ISA and all. Operation Lalang, you name it. We were old enough not to have hated Tun Razak as we hated Mahathir.

The young idealistic leaders of the opposition who have the Rakyat’s interests in their hearts when confronted with today’s challenges, would not mind having a meal with Daim Zainuddin and some can even rendezvous with Mahathir in London. They probably missed a lot that happened when they were just kids oblivious to the tyranny suffered by opposition leaders at the hands of Mahathir.

That is probably why the elder leaders are guarded whenever they could be mistaken with siding Mahathir in today’s controversies. Support the issue by all means, just do not go soft on Mahathir, seem to be their clarion call.

Can’t enemies be friends when facing a common enemy? Even though I do wonder why Mahathir gets to choose the replacement that will carry on UMNO’s fight against the opposition, after the very same opposition has helped him in the Parliamentary Vote of No Confidence to remove Najib. It doesn’t make sense. What do we know, we old farts, to ways of the sleazy.

Why can’t we wait until we beat Najib, which Mahathir said is a sure thing, at the coming PRU14 General Elections, and choose a new leader from among ourselves? Why help to replace Najib with a new UMNO leader before the elections? He could be a more formidable or disgusting person.

My friends and I at the breakfast came to the conclusion that Mahathir may have things mixed up about supporting UMNO at one’s peril, at 90 years of age. He also probably misheard what the Speaker, Pandikar Amin, had told him because our spirit was dampened when Pandikar issued a denial that he had resigned as a Speaker, as told by Mahathir.

Now why did we believe the news when the announcement of the resignation was made by Mahathir, and not by Amin himself? That speaks a lot of the reverence we have of Mahathir when he held office in the past. We forgot that he is now retired and is 90. He could have misheard and just loves to blabber.

Because that’s the way we are, too, these retirement days. Nevertheless, we do not forget the pain, the fear and the humiliation Mahathir had caused us. We may forgive but we will never forget. And we will never ever associate with him and his sleazy ways.