Mahathir denies he will stay beyond three years but Anwar is unfazed

​Rumour has it that Pakatan Harapan is pushing Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to set a date for his departure but in an interview with CNBC, the elderly statesman said he will not go beyond three years, instead of two years as agreed by the coalition partners.

The gay sex video allegedly exposing Azmin Ali the Minister of Economic Affairs and now a close ally to Dr Mahathir – according to rumours – has strengthened the PM’s position.

“He is now in a position to dictate when he will leave seeing that the Parti Keadilan Rakyat is in shambles after the gay sex video appeared,” said Cordoba Ali.

Last week, the analyst told The Independent Dr Mahathir’s hand is now stronger in the Pakatan with the weakened PKR. He believes Dr Mahathir will now attempt to stay longer in power with Anwar suffering a setback with Azmin’s name dragged in an illicit sex scandal.

Though Dr Mahathir has given his support to Azmin, he now has the authority which he did not have earlier to try and bring the PKR to kowtow to his demands, said the analyst.

Anwar Ibrahim’s party he said has to solve this problem created by one of its members against a high official of the government in order to be able to push for a departure date for Dr Mahathir.

The pro-Anwar blog The Malaysian Chronicle today said Dr Mahathir has overstayed his welcome and compares him to Rosmah Mansor, the wife of ex-PM Najib Razak.

The PKR is divided in the middle on the issue with a pro-Azmin Member of Parliament in Ampang, Selangor criticising Anwar for not firing the man who confessed he was one of the two men in the video.

Zuraidah Kamaruddin told the media if she was the PKR President (in the place of Anwar) she would have fired Haziq Abdullah, the Sarawak PKR chief who accused Azmin of being his gay partner.

Dr Mahathir denies saying he would step down as PM within three years but Anwar insists that there is no problem with the planned transition of power when asked if he was willing to wait longer than two years to take over from Dr M.-/TISG