KUALA LUMPUR: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made sharp comments on a variety of issues yestereday, including the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, religious extremists, and the loss of Malay support for his administration after he sacked his then deputy Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

“If you don’t perform and people say you’re no good, please resign,” Dr Mahathir said at the Malaysian Dilemma forum when replying to a question about Najib’s administration, The Malaysian Insider reported.

On the debt-heavy strategic investor 1Malaysia Development Bhd, the 89-year-old said tersely, “I won’t have 1MDB.”

With his trademark sarcasm, Dr Mahathir said he has not had a good track record in choosing successors. “I chose Pak Lah [Tun Abdullah Badawi], and you know what happened. I chose Anwar, and you know what happened,” he said. Abdullah replaced him as prime minister in 2003 and Anwar, who was his deputy, was sacked in 1998 for corruption.

“But the thing is, before they came into power, they were really good. They were clean. Bersih. Now ‘bersih’ only refers to the demonstrators,” Dr Mahathir said as the crowd burst into laughter.

When asked why he kept criticising the government despite retiring from public office 12 years ago, Dr Mahathir said that he was merely exercising his right as a citizen of Malaysia. “So what do I do? Be like Pak Lah and keep quiet? I don’t,” he said.

He, however, added that he was “reluctant” to criticise the current prime minister as he was not “perfect himself”.

“I am not a master of everything. But certain things I cannot support. I have publicly said that I do not support Najib because there are many wrong things. The country is currently facing a lot of problems but the government is not admitting it. They are in denial.”

Referring to allegations by anonymous blogs against The Edge Media Group owner Datuk Tong Kooi Ong, Dr Mahathir said it takes more than one individual to sabotage the economy.

Speaking of the time while he was prime minister during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998, Dr Mahathir said attempts to devalue a national currency required “a big organisation”.

Of the claims against Tong, Dr Mahathir reiterated that “if there is such an allegation, do a proper investigation and not a one-sided one”.

Tong, who is executive chairman of The Edge Media Group, has been accused of betting against the ringgit to make it crash for personal profit. He has since denied the allegations made in several blogs, calling them “malicious lies and fabrications”.

Recalling the general election of 1999, Dr Mahathir said that the Chinese helped him gain the two-thirds majority in Parliament despite losing some 300,000 Malay votes following the infamous Anwar “black eye” incident. But he said the Chinese, who were relieved with nation’s recovery from the financial crisis of 1997, supported him. 

He also wanted moderate Malaysians to speak up against extremists in the country to ensure that they would not become “too powerful”.

Describing himself as a moderate, Dr Mahathir said it is important for Malaysians to rebut those with extreme views, but added that he does not see this happening.

“Some people called me racist but I am a moderate. If you do not rebut the extremists, they will be even more powerful.

“Please make your views known. The problem with extremists [is because] the moderates do not say anything against them,” he said. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 13, 2015.