Be patient 'old man', wait for GE, Nazri tells Dr M

Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz has urged Dr Mahathir Mohamad to be patient and wait for the next general election.

"My advise to this old man is: be patient, 2018 will come, then you'll have your time, you can have a go at us. You want to bring us down, no problem.

"But to bring down a democratically elected government by undemocratic means; this is something which we cannot accept," he told a press conference today.

The Umno supreme council member was responding to the former premier's attempt to remove Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

Though acknowledging Mahathir's contributions to the nation, Nazri said attempting to bring down the government through undemocratic means is not good irrespective of the person's former position.

"This is a country which practices democracy, all the governments here were elected democratically," he said.

In a Sinar Harian report today, Nazri had described Mahathir (photo) as a "low class" politician who is willing to do anything in order to achieve his objective.

"He is now at the 'low class' political level. This is very sad, but what to do, he did it to himself," he added.

Meanwhile, Nazri was also asked to comment on Mahathir’s current favourable stance on foreign media.

He merely pointed out how Mahathir will be against people who do not follow what he wants.

'I can't control him'

Asked on what will be the outcome of Mahathir’s manoeuvres, Nazri said the question should be posed to him instead.

“I can't control him. But whatever he does, if it’s wrong, we will fight it. If it is not according to the law, we will fight, if it follows the law, (there’s) no problem.”

Nazri further reminded how various documentaries were made about the country during Mahathir's time as premier.

“He reminded us how important it was to defend him, (and) we defended him. He knew that the foreign media could do nothing to him, so I'm telling him now - the foreign media can do nothing to us,” said Nazri.

It is up to individuals, he added, whether they want to respect Mahathir as a statesman or otherwise.

“I can't instruct people not to respect him. And he's no longer in my party, so it’s up to him what he wants to do.

“Other parties, too, don't want to accept him, he's a liability now,” he said.

Mahathir, yesterday, cited 53 international media organisations which have reported the issues surrounding Najib and 1MDB.

The number one critic of Najib currently spearheads the Save Malaysia movement, which demands, among others, the resignation of the prime minister. -Mkini