If Dr M could de-register Umno just to cling to power, what would he dare do to Najib now?

For the past few months Tun Mahathir has kept on condemning Prime Minister Najib Razak’s plans for development of country and community. Why suddenly is Mahathir asking questions, five years after Najib took charge? Is there any hidden agenda for Mahathir?

Yet Mahathir also stubbornly refuses to accept or to admit his own mistakes. He refuses to face reality. He is not really interested in the welfare of Malaysians at all, not even the Malays or Umno: he only wants to save his face and to make sure that his son Mukhriz will become Prime Minister no matter what deals he has to execute with the current batch of Umno warlords.

Ruthless and completely selfish, Mahathir would think nothing of creating chaos just to fulfil that ambition. After all, he was willing to de-register Umno just to stay in power. Imagine what he would dare do to get Mukhriz in as Umno president. But this incessant interfering and trouble-making in Umno will be his tenth and final mistake.

Let’s consider Mahathir, the father of crony capitalism.

Mahathir often chose the wrong people for the wrong jobs and also trusted the wrong people. The Malay tycoons he picked had no real business savvy but were merely the trusted aides of Daim Zainuddin: that is why guys like Tajuddin Ramli, Halim Saad, Rashid Hussein, Mohd Noor Mutalib and Abdul Rahman Maidin fared poorly in the end. Some have even been hauled to court to settle debts.

In his foolishness, Mahathir allowed a major portion of the nation’s wealth to fall into the hands of a few, which included non-Malay billionaires such as Vincent Tan, Robert Kuok and Ananda Krishnan. Tan has just announced his retirement, Kuok unhappy with the worsening racial relations in the country has chosen to stay in Hong Kong, while Ananda is wanted by the Indian authorities over corruption allegations in a telecoms deal to buy into Aircel.

But during his era ordinary non-Malays have felt the pinch, many forced to go overseas to work and to study.

The only group that benefited were the elite in the party, their families and cronies.

So Mahathir – despite his self-praise – was in fact rather short-sighted, and money was far more important to him than he cared to admit. - FMT