Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad is rooting for Democrat Joe Biden to win the upcoming US presidential election and believes that should Republican Donald Trump be re-elected, it would be "a disaster".
In an interview with South China Morning Post, Mahathir said Trump was "very belligerent" towards his own people and the rest of the world.
Mahathir cited Trump's initial nonchalance towards the Covid-19 pandemic, use of the military against demonstrators, sanctions against Iran, confrontation with Europe and China, and the sacking of White House staff as examples.
"He sacks all his staff which are not for him. It sounds like a third world country.
"In Malaysia, probably we do that. (If) we don't like him, we sack him," said Mahathir, while trying to subdue a wry smile.
"(But we're talking about) America - the great democratic country in the world. Very liberal, tolerant and things like that. (Yet) he sacks so many of his staff."
Mahathir said he was endorsing Biden because he sounded "reasonable".
"At least he responded to the George Floyd thing in a reasonable way (and) he had some members of congress support (anti-racism protests), but not Trump.
"Trump is using the army against (demonstrators)," he said.
Unlike Trump (above), Mahathir did not believe that China was hiding information regarding the spread of Covid-19.
Mahathir, who practised medicine before politics, said China needed time to investigate the matter before announcing it to the world.
"If this thing happened in Malaysia, and we discovered that somebody is suffering from a strange disease, we don't go to town and say: 'Oh, there is a strange disease here!'
"(The Chinese) are threatened by (the coronavirus). They have to find out first, and as they were investigating at that stage, they didn't realise that it was going to result in a pandemic," he said.
He said China and Malaysia's efforts to stem the spread of Covid-19 was successful because citizens in these countries were generally "law-abiding" and disciplined.
"In America, they talk about freedom. You can't tell me not to come out of my house. That is my freedom... It's always about freedom.
"That has resulted in 1.7 million Americans being infected and they have 100,000 over deaths, because of this freedom," he said. - Mkini
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