ON THE CONTRARY, DAP & AMANAH – IF SHAFIE & SARAWAK LEADERS WON’T ACCEPT ANWAR NOW, WHY WOULD THEY ACCEPT HIM WHEN MAHATHIR DIES OR STEPS DOWN? FOR SURE, MAHATHIR WILL USE THIS SAME EXCUSE NOT TO RETIRE – IF DAP & AMANAH CANNOT FORESEE THIS, THEN THEY HAVE PUT POWER & POSITIONS AHEAD OF PRINCIPLES & REFORMS – WHAT THEN IS THE DIFFERENCE FOR ANWAR & PKR TO WORK WITH MUHYIDDIN OR EVEN UMNO? HOW SERIOUS IS MAHATHIR AGAINST CORRUPTION WHEN HIS OWN ERAS FATHERED THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF INSTITUTIONALIZED GRAFT & HE HIMSELF WAS CALLED THE US$100 BILLION MAN

We had written the risk of allowing Mahathir Mohamad to again become a prime minister. In a nutshell, he cannot be trusted. Anwar Ibrahim should be made the new Prime Minister, not Mahathir. Exactly why must Anwar be unfairly mistreated after all his sacrifices while the evil Mahathir, who did not even spend a single day in prison, is given the job again for the third time?

Yes, the ideal choice to the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition is for Anwar to be crowned as the 9th Prime Minister. Screw Mahathir! Long live Anwar! But that was “before” Sabah-based Warisan leader, Shafee Apdal, announced that his choice must be the 94-year-old Mahathir. So in reality, even with the entire PH’s 91 votes behind him, Anwar cannot become the next premier.

The best scenario is for Anwar to become the PM and Mahathir’s son, Mukhriz, as deputy PM with the bonus of Mahathir as Mentor Minister thrown in. But such proposal failed to take off. Therefore, the next option is to work with the devil himself – Mahathir – in order to snatch back the government from backdoor Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who is doing all the UMNO dirty works.

The Mahathir-Anwar combo is not the ideal solution, but unfortunately, it is the only realistic workaround on the table simply because Anwar could not convince either Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs) or Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) to support him – pure and simple! Which part of this that Mahathir-haters or Anwar-supporters don’t understand? A perfect and ideal solution is unavailable.

However, when DAP’s organising secretary, Anthony Loke Siew Fook, revealed that both DAP and Amanah are waiting for PKR president Anwar Ibrahim to decide on the tag-team combo, all hell breaks loose. Anwar’s aide, Perak PKR Chief Mohd Farhash Wafa Salvador Rizal Mubarak, has condemned DAP – “Is this how you repay Anwar for a friendship built over 20 years?”

Seriously? Does the Anwar’s aide really want to go there? When Mahathir unleashed Zakir Naik to bark and insult the non-Malays, telling the Chinese to go back to China and the Hindus to go back to India, where was Anwar Ibrahim? Anwar obediently agreed with Mahathir not to extradite the hate preacher. Is that how Anwar repay non-Malays for a friendship built over 20 years?

Selangor PKR Youth secretary Ahmad Syukri Abd Razab has even suggested that Anwar quit the Pakatan Harapan coalition to teach DAP and Amanah a lesson. Why must PKR go ballistic when DAP was merely asking Anwar not to drag his feet and decide about the Mahathir-Anwar combo? If Anwar and his party do not agree, just say so. There’s no need to threaten.

It’s the childish behaviour of PKR leaders like Mohd Farhash and Ahmad Syukri, as well as Anwar’s indecisiveness that had allowed Azmin Ali to easily manipulate and betray the party in the first place. Only now PKR leaders whined, moaned and bitched about how Mahathir ignored PKR’s recommendation for ministerships, and appointed Azmin as the Economic Affairs Minister.

Had the PKR leaders courageously threatened to quit the coalition (the same way they are threatening DAP and Amanah now) when Mahathir defiantly appointed Azmin with the evil intention of splitting PKR back in 2018, the coup might not have happened. Anwar’s boys knew it 2 years ago, but talked as if Mahathir’s plan of using Azmin as a mole in the party just happened yesterday.

Fine, Mahathir had caused the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government. Can DAP and Amanah also naughtily suspect that there’s more to Anwar’s private meeting in April with Muhyiddin than meets the eye? How could Anwar meet so soon the same traitor who had conspired with Azmin and robbed his chance of becoming the 8th Prime Minister?

After uproars over Anthony Loke’s so-called “pressure” on Anwar to speed up his response, PH secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said Anwar had travelled to Sarawak, presumably to win over the hearts of Sarawak party leaders. Another source claimed Anwar is even seeking an audience with some Malay Rulers in order to legitimise himself as the PM candidate.

Has Anwar gotten any favourable replies from Sabah and Sarawak, let alone approvals to meet the monarchs? If not, that suggests a huge problem, is it not? Forget Sarawak, which is a harder nut to crack. Let’s talk about Sabah. Did Anwar at least manage to convince Chief Minister Shafee Apdal to support him as the 10th Prime Minister after Mahathir’s exit in 6 months?

Like it or not, the fact remains that Anwar Ibrahim, and Pakatan Harapan (formerly Pakatan Rakyat) for that matter, had tried for 20 years to unseat the mighty Barisan Nasional regime without any success – until the alliance with Mahathir. And now the same old man wanted to get rid of Perikatan Nasional regime, a common enemy, but PKR is getting very emotional instead of objective.

Even if Mahathir has no intention of stepping down after 6 months as promised, one thing is pretty sure – he desperately wants to send UMNO crooks like Najib Razak, Zahid Hamidi, Tengku Adnan, Bung Moktar and Azeez Abdul Rahim to prison. If PKR thinks it’s not worthwhile to even see these spectacular fireworks, then reject Mahathir’s proposal. Just be decisive!

But besides waiting for the next 15th General Election, which may not happen after all until 2023 because the backdoor government of Muhyiddin is no longer under threat thanks to the failure of Mahathir-Anwar combo, what else can PKR and PH do? Has anyone noticed the return of the old UMNO regime with government critics increasingly being charged with sedition?

We’ve also published previously that there’s no right or wrong answer as to whether PH should work again with Mahathir. It depends on how desperate PH wants to take back its legitimate power – immediately or wait until the next general election, which is about 3 years away. At the end of the day, if Pakatan Harapan value principles more than politics, then continues as the Opposition.

The most important part is for all the component parties – PKR, DAP and Amanah – to stay united. If PKR decides to let Muhyiddin rules and plunders until 2023, then DAP and Amanah should abandon the plan to work with Mahathir again and close ranks to prevent Pakatan Harapan from a total collapse. But get ready to accept that what is happening to Hannah Yeoh will continue for the next 3 years.

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