Saudi Arabia and UAE care about self-preservation, not democracy
Elections in Malaysia have toppled close Saudi ally Najib Razak. His downfall could expose how and why Riyadh gave him hundreds of millions of dollars in donations
Azzam Tamimi, Middle East Eye
Political remarks tweeted by the Emirati academic and commentator Abdulkhaleq Abdulla are not to be taken lightly. They are usually meant to express an opinion embraced by Muhammad bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and the de facto leader of the UAE who is now widely known in the international press as MBZ.
In a recent tweet, Abdulla conveyed to his followers the displeasure felt by MBZ toward the results of the Malaysian elections, in which the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition was defeated by the Alliance of Hope, with Najib Razak losing his position as prime minister. They also saw the elevation to power once again of 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, who had switched parties earlier this year.
Abdulla said: “Malaysia seems to be void of wise men, of leaders, of statesmen and of youth so as to elect a 92-year-old who suddenly turned against his own party and his own allies and made a dubious deal with his own political foe whom he previously imprisoned after fabricating against him the most heinous of charges.
“This is politics when it turns to be a curse and democracy when it turns to be a wrath.”
Notwithstanding the ups and downs of the relationship between Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim, an opposition leader jailed for five years in 2015 for sexually assaulting a former aide on what he said were politically motivated charges, neither the UAE academic nor his boss MBZ in Abu Dhabi care about democracy.
After all, it was the UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, who funded the military coup that toppled the first democratically elected civilian president in the history of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi. Mahathir’s age cannot be of real concern to them when they have nothing but grace and glory to say about the Alzheimers-stricken and senile king in neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
What then truly distresses them about the Malaysian election result?
