MAS sale idea prelude to Mahathir’s anti-Najib campaign?

An international news portal has claimed that a war between prime minister Najib Razak and former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad is now on the horizon.

And this is clearly seen, according to Asia Sentinel, in an impending war on the future of national carrier Malaysian Airlines System (MAS), following Najib's outright rejection of Mahathir's proposal that it be privatised as a way out of its current problems.

“If the sale of the airline is announced over the next few weeks or months, it will be a demonstration of Mahathir's power against Najib's,” the portal speculated.

It claimed that Najib had been under immense pressure from within UMNO as well as from constant attacks by pro-Mahathir bloggers, who have continued to criticise him over his failed strategy to reach out to the Chinese and Indians.

Mahathir and former Finance stalwart Daim Zainuddin, it said, appeared to be in control as their strategy of playing Malay nationalism had kept UMNO in power.

Asia Sentinel also pointed out that Najib’s olive branch to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to set up unity government had further weakened the UMNO president’s position.

“(It is) partly because of Mahathir's implacable enmity against Anwar," it added, referring to several blogs including one by a former minister who had stepped up their attacks on Najib in recent days.

Despite all that, UMNO sources predicted that Najib would still survive, but as a 'puppet PM' under the influence of Mahathir and Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor as “nobody is interested in the job or ready politically to take it on.”

- en.harakahdaily.net