No minister mentor position for me, says Mahathir

(FMT) – Dr Mahathir Mohamad has rejected a suggestion by Anwar Ibrahim that he takes up a senior minister or minister mentor’s post if Pakatan Harapan regains the federal government.

“No, I will not accept it,” he said in an interview with Sin Chew Daily today.

Mahathir said that based on his experience, no one would listen to his advice.

“Whenever I advise a prime minister (Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak or Muhyiddin Yassin), they never take my advice,” he said.

Mahathir said a prime minister needs to take charge of everything and leaves his own legacy.

“A prime minister should not have to say ‘I got my legacy from Tun’,” he said.

Anwar had said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia (CNA) that he is willing to consider a position for Mahathir such as senior minister or minister mentor” if PH returns to power.

He said “a new government must be totally committed to reforms, structural reforms”.

Previously, PH component parties DAP and Amanah told PKR to return to the coalition’s consensus to back Mahathir as prime again as Anwar is not expected to achieve majority support in Parliament.

They said the PKR president is only likely to receive the backing of 96 MPs at the most and that the “deadline” for GPS to agree to support Anwar “has already ended”.

Their statement did not sit well with some quarters in PKR, with one leader from Selangor urging the party to ditch DAP and Amanah.