Mahathir living on borrowed time

Raja Sara Petra

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is living on borrowed time. And I am not referring to his age but to his term as the seventh prime minister of Malaysia. Mahathir is supposed to hold the office of prime minister for two years, meaning up to May 2020, but I doubt he will even last till May 2019 at the rate things are going, politically speaking, that is.

Anwar Ibrahim is not prepared to wait two years for Mahathir to hand over the job of prime minister to him. Even more worrying for Anwar is the possibility that in two years’ time Mahathir may not honour his promise and may decide to stay on till the end of his term or the end of his life, whichever comes first.

Mahathir knows Anwar is impatient to become prime minister while Anwar knows Mahathir has no plan to hand over the job of prime minister to him, whether in two years or five years. So now it is a contest of the last man standing. Only one is going to walk away from this contest and Mahathir is determined it is not going to be Anwar.

Many in Pakatan Harapan realise that the last seven months since May 2018 have been wasted. No real effort has been put into improving the situation in the country. In fact, the situation has got even worse since GE14, especially as far as race relations is concerned. Never before in Malaysia’s history has the country been brought to the brink of a full-blown race war.

For the last seven months, Malaysia has been engulfed in Pakatan Harapan’s orgy of lies and propaganda. They say Najib Tun Razak stole RM42 billion of 1MDB’s money but thus far nothing has been proven. They say Malaysia’s debts are RM1 trillion but no other financial expert agrees with this figure.

The Cabinet comprises a bunch of jokers who put the country to shame. I would not trust these people to walk my dog let alone to run the country. As Mukhriz Mahathir said, I am ashamed to call myself Malaysian but not for the same reason Mukhriz quoted.

If Mahathir really wants Malaysians to adopt Japanese values then he should ask his entire Cabinet to commit suicide. That would be one sure way for Malaysia’s economy to improve and for the stock market to go up. That would be the most patriotic thing Pakatan Harapan can do for Malaysia.