While Mahathir moves his right hand his left hand is more dangerous

Mahathir’s plan is not just to form a new party. It is also to take over PKR at the same time. Azmin is going to be Mahathir’s proxy in PKR while Muhyiddin will be the proxy for the new party. Then Mahathir is going to become the Thaksin Shinawatra of Malaysia, the man behind the throne.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Malaysia Today reported this a while back. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is backing Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali in his bid to oust party President Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and take over the Presidency of PKR. Basically, they are planning a coup d’etat on Wan Azizah, and she knows this.

Actually, the truth is, Mahathir is not just backing Azmin. He is pushing Azmin. And Mahathir has already told Azmin in very strong terms that he is not happy with the delay in ousting Wan Azizah. Mahathir wants it done fast and within the next two or three months.

Anwar Ibrahim’s inner circle, think tank, team of political strategists, or whatever you wish to call them, is trying to block this, though. That was one reason for Anwar’s ‘leaked’ letter from prison, which was not really a leak but engineered to become public so that it will serve as a warning to Azmin.

But this has not stopped Azmin in spite of that warning from the Sungai Buloh Prison and the ‘expose’ of his affair with one of the PKR ‘interns’ — which Azmin knows that Rafizi Ramli is behind it. Azmin, in fact, retaliated by threatening to also expose the evidence of Rafizi’s affair with a number of young men or boys.

Nevertheless, I doubt this will destroy either Azmin or Rafizi. Affairs with other women, even other people’s wives, or affairs with those of your same sex, are no longer an effective weapon to bring down a politician.

In spite of two sodomy convictions Anwar is still Pakatan’s choice for Prime Minister, and in spite of the evidence that Muhyiddin Yassin is having an affair with another man’s wife (by way of the SD signed by her husband), Mahathir still wants him to head his new party.

Anyway, Tun Daim Zainuddin has been having regular meetings with Azmin to plan the ouster of Wan Azizah and the takeover of PKR (and PAS has the details). To be able to oust Wan Azizah, Azmin must control at least 120 PKR divisions. And this is not going to be cheap. Daim has set aside a budget of RM250 million or between RM1 million to RM3 million per division.

RM250 million may sound like a huge amount of money but in politics that is nothing. Anwar spent more than RM250 million to oust Tun Ghafar Baba 23 years ago in 1993. For Sabah alone Anwar spent RM200 million (all in cash, mind you — ask Abdul Ghapur Salleh about it) to buy his nominations (which resulted in Ghafar stepping down), and that is worth about RM350 million today.

Anwar was said to have spent RM600 million (which is RM1 billion today) to become the seventh Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. And of course the money came from business tycoons and gaming companies, according to the testimony in court from people who had to deliver suitcases of cash to Anwar’s house every week.

So both Daim and Azmin know that all it takes is money, plenty of money. And RM250 million to oust Wan Azizah and take over PKR is small potatoes. Mahathir has thus far spent more than a billion (RM600 million just to bribe Mat Salleh bloggers and journalists from the UK, US, Australia, etc.). And they will need RM3 billion in total to continue financing the ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign) and another RM2 billion to fund Mahathir’s new party just until 2018.

That is a total bill of RM5 billion over just three-and-a-half years. And yet Mahathir has the cheek to complain that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak spent RM2.5 billion to finance his political activities over the past three-and-a-half years and to win the 2013 general election (money which came from Middle East donors). Mahathir’s budget is double that.

If all Najib spent was just RM2.5 billion then that is cheap because Mahathir spent RM1.5 billion every general election since the 1980s when he was Prime Minister. And that RM1.5 billion was just for the elections and not yet for other political activities in between general elections.

So, yes, getting into power and retaining power is not cheap. It is even more expensive in the UK and US. It cost US$100 million just for the demonstrations and ‘occupy’ campaign to bring down Yingluck Shinawatra (and I was there in Bangkok in the demonstration the day she resigned).

So the question is: will RM250 million for Azmin to buy over at least 120 PKR divisions be enough? The problem is Daim may be super-rich but then he is also a super-stingy person. It is not easy to squeeze money out of him. If Azmin really wants to succeed then he needs to get Daim to increase the budget to RM10 million per division. And this would mean RM1.2 billion instead of a mere dedak (chicken feed) of RM250 million.

Mahathir knows his new party alone cannot do the trick. He needs PKR with him as well. And that will never happen as long as Wan Azizah is in charge because she hates Mahathir more than she hates pretty young gay boys. So she needs to be ousted and replaced with Azmin.

Anwar is keeping his options open, though. He is playing the role of ‘good cop’ while Wan Azizah plays the role of ‘bad cop’ so that they can swing whichever way suits them. Anwar knows that Mahathir might be his ‘get out of jail quick’ ticket. But then Mahathir has already indicated that Anwar’s freedom is not part of the ‘Save Malaysia’ agenda.

And that is why Wan Azizah said they will ‘wait and see’ first. She means wait and see whether Mahathir agrees that Anwar’s freedom is going to be part of the ‘Save Malaysia’ agenda before committing whether to support Mahathir’s new party and join the new opposition coalition that Mahathir is mooting.

PAS also said they will wait and see — wait and see whether Mahathir supports Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s Syariah Amendment Bill in Parliament. If Mahathir does then DAP is going to whack him. If he does not then PAS can call him a kafir harbi (like they did once 35 years ago in 1981) and tell him to go and die. The question is Mahathir has to now contemplate whether he needs the Chinese votes from DAP more than he needs the Malay votes from PAS. If PAN can deliver the PAS votes then Mahathir will choose DAP over PAS.

The next couple of months till September are going to be very crucial. Azmin has two months to take over the party presidency while during that same time Mahathir has to get his new party registered and organised, which is impossible.

Mahathir’s political strategist, Syed Akbar Ali, has been testing the market to see how much support they can garner. As soon as Mahathir’s new party was announced, Syed Akbar ‘leaked’ the new party leadership list (above) to see what excitement they can trigger.

Unfortunately the move backfired and many came out to deny that they are joining Mahathir’s new party, let alone become one of the party leaders. So it looks like many more people other than PKR and PAS want to wait and see first.

Actually, Syed Akbar is hoping that he will become the new party’s Information Chief but he did not want to include that in the list lest he be accused of gila kuasa. But with this silly move of leaking the fake leadership list, which caused more harm than good, Mahathir might have to reconsider that plan.

Well, there is still Zainuddin Maidin and Kadir Jasin. Those two may not be as clever as Syed Akbar but they cannot do any more damage than what they have already done. So Mahathir has three choices of Information Chief: dumb, dumber and dumbest. Take your pick.

And while all this political intrigue, coups and counter-coups are going on, what is Lim Guan Eng’s stand on the matter? Well, he is also waiting and seeing while he serenades us with this beautiful song by an equally beautiful singer ‘Over the rainbow’.