Dr Mahathir Mohamad today refused to reveal whether he will run for Parliament again during the next general election.
Speaking to Cityplus FM today, Mahathir clearly equivocated when asked the first time. When the interviewer repeated the question, an amused Mahathir then refused to rule out the possibility.
"By the next general election, I will be 98 or 97 years old. I know I am old, but I am a bit lucky because I have not lost my ability to interact with people, to argue and to lead the party.
"My party wants me to contest, I don't think I should, but I will be strongly supportive of Pejuang," said Mahathir.
Mahathir is the chairperson of Pejuang, a party he co-founded after being sacked from Bersatu - an Umno splinter party that he also co-founded.
Pejuang has pledged to field 120 candidates for Parliament during the next general election and will be campaigning on an anti-corruption and Malay champion platform.
When Mahathir was asked if he harboured any ambitions of being prime minister again, he was much more forthcoming.
"No. I am too old, although I can still function... The work is too heavy. I can lend (the prime minister) my support.
"I don't think as a person I can become prime minister. Unfortunately, my party is still very keen to have me as prime minister," said Mahathir, who will turn 97 this July.
On criticisms against his remark on "chopsticks", Mahathir said he had nothing against chopsticks, noting that he knows how to use them and that the utensils are also used by the Japanese, Vietnamese and Koreans.
He said he had only used chopsticks as an example of how Indians and Chinese were resistant to adopting the norms of the majority in Malaysia.
"That is the first thing that came to mind. I could have said 'lion dance'," he said, adding that people would have made an issue even if he had used other examples.
He reiterated his oft-repeated arguments that he expected Indians and Chinese to make a stronger attempt to adopt Malay culture and language, using forced Chinese assimilation in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia as examples.
"When we get to a stage where, although we are people of different races, but our culture and language are almost identical, that will lessen identification of race," said Mahathir. - Mkini
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