Mahathir Is Merely The PM Standing In For Anwar Ibrahim

Ronnie Liu

Top Pakatan leaders took over a year to discuss and finetune the manifesto before the last general election.

It took many rounds of discussion before a doable manifesto was crafted. A lot of thinking has gone into the paper although PH had little or no clue about the extent of the damage done to the country by the former regime.

It was not as if Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Pakatan Harapan thought it would lose in the general election, therefore, all sorts of promises were written into the manifesto without due diligence.

Dr Mahathir has shot himself on the foot when he made a claim unilaterally that the manifesto was worthless. It is as good as saying that PH has won the election based on lies.

READ MORE HERE: ‘Kami Ingat Kalah, Kami Letaklah Perkara Susah Dalam Manifesto’

PH is led by consensus and not by any single individual. Dr Mahathir should refrain from speaking on behalf of the PH leaders.

This is simply not right as he is both the prime minister, standing in for Anwar Ibrahim, who is the face of true Reformasi.

Anwar has spent 20 years of his life seeking for reforms, but Dr Mahathir only joined PH at the eleventh hour with the intention of defeating Najib Abdul Razak.

There is no reason for Dr Mahathir to discredit the coalition that he is leading unless he is trying to tell the people that the manifesto is nothing but a piece of scrap paper.

In short, is he telling people that PH has made false promises which cannot be delivered, despite the determination of its top leaders to fulfil their promises to the people?

At the same time, it is not right for Dr Mahathir to call for Hong Kong SAR leader, Carrie Lam to resign.

If the leader of any nation has failed to deliver, the more dignified thing for him or her to do is to resign, and not for the leader of another sovereign nation to interfere into the internal affairs of another nation.

DrM has breached the policy of non-interference, something which Malaysia subscribes to.

Towards the tail end of his life, he should learn to preserve his legacy as a statesman instead of being criticized for his lack of decorum . It is not his job to rile up leaders of another sovereign nation.