What has Najib learned from Mahathir Mohamad’s smart replies? Surely many things as the former Prime Minister’s cunning replies filled with sarcasm has hurt the image of the Malaysian PM badly.
In a sudden backlash to his wild remarks and unfounded accusations against Mahathir, Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak has suddenly toned down his personal attacks.
Instead, he shifted for a fast forward Royal Commission of Inquiry on a long gone case of forex losses against Mahathir – one of the many that Malaysia has seen – but with it is an RCI with an obvious objective: To nail Mahathir.
While all RCI’s should be as independent as possible, the current one against Mahathir is rigged with a mysterious approach.
The RCI’s chairman Mohd Sidek Hassan apparently replied to Mahathir and former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s request to testify at the hearing, denying them the right to do so.
Today, the former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim slammed Sidek on the Bank Negara’s forex losses for being undecided over the need to call him and Dr. Mahathir Mohamad to testify.
It shows how Najib is afraid of the no-pun-intended answers by Mahathir, who lately have taken Najib to task by replying to him in short but sharp videos.
Take the case of the construction of the transport industry in Malaysia. Najib went – according to him viral – by saying Mahathir has never paid any attention to the woes of the public while his regime never helped in building the local transportation system.
Mahathir’s answer – published here on TISG – was funny, witty and on the dot indication of the intelligence that divides the two leaders.
While Najib wanted to ridicule Mahathir by saying he gave a ‘gift of transportation’ to the Malaysians with the newly built MRT lines, Mahathir replied in his traditional cunning way that he, as PM never laid a stone to build the local LRT lines adding that it was the job of the labourers and workers whom he seemed to quality as the heroes.
The video went viral all over Malaysia, but it irritated Najib so much that he decided to attack Mahathir on the ‘legal’ standpoint.
Thus the RCI was called Illico-Presto to ‘judge and nail’ Mahathir once and for all.
But like the Samsung Note 7 – that was launched in a preemptive manner to attack the Apple 7 launch – the RCI is backfiring.
The public has a clear idea what the RCI is about – if not a demonstration of the lack of judgment by the Najib regime on how to tackle a frail, dying old man.
The idea of Mahathir dying soon was launched recently by Raja Petra Kamarudin, once a prominent pro-opposition blogger and staunch pro-Anwar who has now fallen into oblivion after joining the pro-Najib bandwagon.
Though Raja Petra meant Mahathir’s political inquest against Najib will die soon with the said RCI, Mahathir 91 and is a frail person compared to his hay days.
But Mahathir, dead, will be even more dangerous to Najib.
The RCI judges are not ready to hear Mahathir’s sarcastic responses, and they are not ready to allow Mahathir to be seen together with Anwar at the RCI – an event will strengthen the opposition rather than weaken it.
Hence, the RCI is planning its own demise by not allowing both Mahathir and Anwar to testify.