Crusade against Najib also due to unhappiness with how he dealt with S’pore: Mahathir
(Today Online) – Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has again said that a reason for his constant attacks against Malaysian premier Najib Razak was due to his unhappiness over how he perceived his successor to have given in to Singapore.
“That too,” Dr Mahathir admitted in an interview with Channel NewsAsia which was aired on Saturday (April 23) when asked if his crusade against Mr Najib was due to his dissatisfaction with the way the Prime Minister dealt with Singapore.
Dr Mahathir had been openly criticising Mr Najib for more than a year over a graft scandal surrounding state firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and the RM2.6 billion (S$900 million) deposited into the latter’s accounts.
However, Mr Najib maintained he has not used the funds for personal gain, and has since been cleared of any criminal offence or corruption.
Last year, Dr Mahathir — who quit the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) recently and is now spearheading a bipartisan movement to oust Mr Najib — accused the Prime Minister of being a “proxy” of Singapore.
He had claimed Mr Najib broke a promise to build a “crooked” bridge between Singapore and the Malaysian state of Johor to replace the ageing Causeway.
In his interview with Channel NewsAsia, Dr Mahathir reiterated that his main reason for pushing for Mr Najib’s resignation was the funds in the latter’s private accounts.
“I think having money in his private account, his secret, not revealing even to his own party or to anybody else, this is something wrong. No Prime Ministers have that kind of money in his private account. If it is given to the party, it should be in the party’s account but he kept this thing until it was exposed by the foreign press,” said Dr Mahathir.
“He (Mr Najib) shouldn’t hold things in secret when this is meant to be, as he claimed, for the party and now he has given back the money, said to have given back the RM2.6 billion but it is ridiculous to get this huge sum of money put in your account and then give back.”
Dr Mahathir was dismissive of the point made by some observers that the situation in Malaysia now was a natural progression of his policies, which he put in place during his 22-year tenure as prime minister.
“Well, during the time when I was doing all these things, were there any protest like you see now? People protesting to have me removed? They didn’t,” he said in reference to the calls from UMNO, opposition politicians and members of civil society for Mr Najib to step down,” said Dr Mahathir.
“In the end, I removed myself. Nobody asked me to be removed. If I were doing what Najib is doing, then, or abusing the system as Najib is abusing, then the people would have shown their anger the way they show their anger towards Najib,” added Dr Mahahir, who retired as prime minister in 2003.
He also claimed that unlike Mr Najib, he allowed dissent during his tenure as both Prime Minister and the president of UMNO, citing former finance minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s challenge against him for the UMNO presidency in 1987 as an example. Tengku Razaleigh failed in his bid to but the move split the party and led UMNO to be deregistered, before being revived as UMNO Baru.
However, Dr Mahathir said Mr Najib does not even allow anyone to “even say one word” about 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion.
“You can’t even say anything against him or talk about 1MDB during the last party meeting,” said Dr Mahathir.
