Is Mahathir the interim PM or Wan Azizah the interim DPM?
Pakatan Harapan is telling us that Mahathir is its interim Prime Minister and Wan Azizah its Deputy Prime Minister if the coalition wins GE14. Mahathir’s track record does not prove that is going to be the case. What is going to happen is it will be Wan Azizah who will be the interim Deputy Prime Minister while Mahathir will stay on as Malaysia’s Seventh Prime Minister. And it will be Mukhriz and not Anwar who will be Malaysia’s Eighth Prime Minister.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. (Kevin Spacey in the movie The Usual Suspects).
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Pakatan’s DPM and interim PM, which will turn out to be Pakatan’s interim DPM and Malaysia’s 7th PM
On Sunday, 7th January 2018, Pakatan Harapan announced Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as its Prime Minister designate and Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as its Deputy Prime Minister designate if the coalition wins the next general election or GE14. However, Mahathir is only going to be an interim Prime Minister.
Pakatan Harapan’s secretary-general, Saifuddin Abdullah, said the agreement the four parties within the coalition reached was that Mahathir must give way to Anwar Ibrahim to take over once the new government obtains a royal pardon for him.
Even if Anwar is freed on 11th June 2018, which would be after the general election, he would be barred from contesting the elections for a period of five years, which means until after GE15. That would make it impossible for him to become the Prime Minister until after June 2023. So they need to get DYMM Yang di-Pertuan Agong to grant Anwar a pardon as soon as Pakatan Harapan forms the new federal government.
So Mahathir will be sworn in as the interim Prime Minister once the results are in on Polling Day and it is confirmed that Pakatan Harapan has won more than 112 parliament seats. The next day they will submit an application to the Pardons Board (see Article 42 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia below) to get a pardon for Anwar. Once the pardon is granted, one of the PKR Members of Parliament will resign so that a by-election can be held. Anwar would then contest this by-election and if he wins the seat Mahathir will resign as the Seventh Prime Minister so that Anwar can get sworn in and take over the the Eighth Prime Minister of Malaysia.
In August 1998 Mahathir told Anwar he was going to step aside to allow Anwar to take over as Prime Minister and a few days later Mahathir broke his word and killed off his deputy
Very clean. Very smooth. And very clear. Or so we are being led to believe. But then, as Kevin Spacey said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” And Mahathir’s track record has proven that he is the master of deception that would put even the devil to shame.
Someone who used to be in Mahathir’s team of ‘Boffin Boys’ during the Team A/Team B days of the late 1980s once said, “With bomoh, you do not listen to what he says but ‘listen’ to what he does.” Bomoh was the codename Mahathir’s inner circle used for him and what they meant was Mahathir may say one thing but that is mere deception. What he does in the end is what counts, not what he says.
From then on we knew how to decipher Mahathir’s cryptic messages. Anwar, however, did not, which was why on 31st August 1998 he failed to ‘smell’ that he merely had hours left to live while the rest of us were already preparing his kain kafan.
So, Pakatan Harapan is telling us that Mahathir is its interim Prime Minister and Wan Azizah its Deputy Prime Minister if the coalition wins GE14. Mahathir’s track record does not prove that is going to be the case. What is going to happen is it will be Wan Azizah who will be the interim Deputy Prime Minister while Mahathir will stay on as Malaysia’s Seventh Prime Minister. And it will be Mukhriz and not Anwar who will be Malaysia’s Eighth Prime Minister.
Mahathir ousted Abdullah to kill Khairy so that Mukhriz can become the Umno Youth leader
Let us go back 12 years to June 2006. Why did Mahathir fire his first shot at Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on 24th June 2006? It was because Abdullah’s son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, was a threat to Mukhriz’s political career. Both Khairy and Mukhriz were going to go head-to-head for the Umno Youth leadership and only one was going to make it. And that one was Khairy.
So Mahathir needed to oust Abdullah so that Khairy could be killed, which would give Mukhriz a clear field to win the Umno Youth leadership. On 3rd April 2009 Abdullah resigned as Prime Minister and later that year the Umno party elections were held. However, Khairy still won in spite of his father-in-law no longer being the Prime Minister. Much to Mahathir’s disappointment, his Boboi Mukhriz lost. In fact, he got third place with Khir Toyo in second place.
Even after Mahathir ousted Abdullah to kill off Khairy, Mukhriz still lost the Umno Youth leadership contest
In 2013, Mukhriz decided to forget about the Umno Youth leadership altogether and go straight for an Umno Vice President’s post. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Mohd Shafie Apdal and Hishammuddin Hussein swept the top three slots (in that order) while Mukhriz, at fourth place, lost. That was when Mahathir decided Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had to go. If Mukhriz is ever going to become Prime Minister then Najib must be ousted. And that was when they also mooted the 1MDB game-plan as the catalyst to oust Najib.
So, for the last 12 years since 2006, it has always been about Mukhriz. It was about Mukhriz in 2006. It was about Mukhriz in 2009. It was about Mukhriz in 2013. It was about Mukhriz in 2015. So why should it not be about Mukhriz now? What has changed since the last 12 years? Nothing! Whatever Mahathir is doing now, and that includes his latest move yesterday, is about Mukhriz.
The Umno succession agreement was made in 1976 but Mahathir did not honour it
So how would helping Anwar get a pardon, and helping Anwar contest a by-election after getting that pardon, and stepping aside so that Anwar can take over as Malaysia’s Eighth Prime Minister, help Mukhriz become Prime Minister? Once Anwar takes over from Mahathir as Prime Minister is he going to sack his own wife, Wan Azizah, and replace her with Mukhriz, and then step aside so that Mukhriz can take over as Malaysia’s Ninth Prime Minister? Once Anwar becomes Prime Minister he is going to slaughter Mukhriz and Mahathir alongside him.
According to the tripartite agreement made between Mahathir, Tun Hussein Onn and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in 1976, Mahathir would appoint Razaleigh as his Deputy Prime Minister once he takes over as Malaysia’s Fourth Prime Minister. Mahathir took over as Malaysia’s Fourth Prime Minister in 1981 and he did not honour that tripartite agreement. So why should Mahathir honour the tripartite agreement he made with Anwar and Wan Azizah on Sunday to step aside and allow Anwar to take over once the Agong’s pardon is granted?
After supporting Tun Musa Hitam as his new Deputy Prime Minister, Mahathir removed him five years later in 1986 when his deputy became more popular than him and posed a threat. Mahathir then replaced Musa with Tun Ghafar Baba and then six years later, in 1993, replaced him with Anwar — who also lasted only five years.
According to the tripartite agreement made between Hussein Onn, Mahathir and Razaleigh in 1976, Mahathir would appoint Razaleigh as his deputy once he takes over as the 4th PM but that did not happen
Mahathir ‘eats’ Deputy Prime Ministers. He even ‘ate’ Tengku Razaleigh before he could become the Deputy Prime Minister. So do people think Mahathir is not going to ‘eat’ Wan Azizah as well and instead will allow her to continue as Deputy Prime Minister while she waits for her husband to get a pardon, gets released from jail, contests the by-election, and then takes over as the new Prime Minister?
Look at what happened to Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. If Muhyiddin had patiently waited he could have taken over as Prime Minister once Najib retires, say around 2020 or so. But if Muhyiddin takes over as Prime Minister, the new Deputy Prime Minister will have to be one of the three Umno Vice Presidents – Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Mohd Shafie Apdal or Hishammuddin Hussein – and most likely the VP with the highest votes.
If Mahathir had allowed Muhyiddin to become the new PM after Najib, one of these three and not Mukhriz would be the new DPM
That means Mukhriz will never become Deputy Prime Minister, let alone Prime Minister. So Mahathir needed Muhyiddin to not wait but to go against Najib. Then it would be a Muhyiddin-Mukhriz tag-team versus a Najib-Zahid tag-team. Only then can Mukhriz become Prime Minister.
So Muhyiddin sacrificed his career and lost everything to help Mukhriz. And where is Muhyiddin now? He started as Deputy Prime Minister and what has he ended up as? Muhyiddin is no longer worth anything to Mahathir so why would Wan Azizah be worth more? Yes, it is not Mahathir who is the interim Prime Minister. It is Wan Azizah who is the interim Deputy Prime Minister. History has proven that is how Mahathir operates.
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Constitution of Malaysia, Article 42: Powers of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong
Article number: 42(1)The Yang di-Pertuan Agong has power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites in respect of all offences which have been tried by court-martial and all offences committed in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan; and the Ruler or Yang di-Pertua Negeri of a State has power to grant pardons, reprieves and respites in respect of all other offences committed in his State.
