(June 19): Umno Supreme Council member Tan Sri Annuar Musa today said Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad used to hate it when his then deputy Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim spoke to the foreign media about the nation's affairs, a day after the former prime minister himself aired his grouses against Datuk Seri Najib Razak via a New York Times interview.

Annuar said Dr Mahathir was doing the same thing he hated in criticising Najib in the foreign media.

"This is something that he himself did not like back then," he said.

“When I was in his cabinet, he used to say how much he disliked some parties, Anwar at that time, using the foreign media.

"I am a little confused as a minister who served under him, that he is not practising what he preached," he told reporters at the Mara headquarters today.

The former prime minister spoke to the New York Times on Wednesday on his criticism of struggling state investment vehicle 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), the “lavish” lifestyle of Najib’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, and troubling questions about the murder of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Najib “wants to leave his own legacy,” Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying in the interview at his office in Putrajaya.

“But what he does is verging on criminal.”

Today, Annuar said he was disappointed with Dr Mahathir’s comments to the paper.

He said Dr Mahathir was a statesman who had done much for Malaysia and was entitled to give his views but at the same time, Najib was entitled to defend himself.

"Najib has been patient and taken a non-confrontational approach in dealing with the criticism from Dr Mahathir.”

On Dr Mahathir’s call for Najib to debate him on 1MDB, Annuar said it was up to the prime minister what he wanted to do about it.

He said Dr Mahathir was fortunate to have been prime minister at a time when social media was no existent.

"During my time, the prime minister was fortunate as there was no Twitter, Facebook or other new media like today.

“The challenge was lighter for us in the Cabinet than compared to what the prime minister and his ministers have to deal with now,” he said. – The Malaysian Insider