NEWS ANALYSIS BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
OCTOBER 28, 2013
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today spoke of the lunatic fringe holding sway in the country, saying that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was acceding to demands from extremists in the opposition.
However, he did not name the extremists or say what their demands were.
“We have a government that is weak because of weak support from the people, and with a tendency to accede to the demands of extremists in the opposition,” Dr Mahathir said in his Perdana Foundation office, across a lake from the prime minister’s office in Putrajaya.
“The worst part is that they make extreme demands to unseat the government who can’t get rid of whatever they don’t like. But if you think that they will then say ‘thanks, we will support you now’, you are mistaken,” said the country’s longest-serving prime minister.
In the past decade since Dr Mahathir stepped down, and even before that, the opposition had been asking for greater democracy, the rule of law, good governance, equity for all citizens and cutting down excesses.
Perhaps only the lunatics dream of such things in Malaysia.
Dr Mahathir is right of course, that the government is weak because support from the people is weak. And that is probably due to the extremists who harangue the government from the far right.
The ones who believe that Malaysia is only for the Malays, who see it as their absolute right to restrict the word Allah to only Muslims in Malaysia and who believe anything else is sacrilegious.
Witness the flip-flop over using the word Allah in Sabah and Sarawak for a dose of what extremists can make the government do.
The thing is, had Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim or even Lim Kit Siang said what Dr Mahathir said today, Umno’s lunatic fringe or shall we say Malaysia’s lunatic fringe, Umno, would have called them traitors and asked for their citizenship to be stripped.
Of course, one has to wonder why Dr Mahathir finally decided to come out today with both guns blazing at the current government. He took a longer time this time than with the Abdullah administration.
Has it got to do with his son Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir’s close loss in the Umno polls? He did say the Umno winners were victorious because of money politics.
Was the loss even bigger to him than Barisan Nasional’s loss in Election 2013, which happened despite his support for the ruling coalition. In 2008, he did not campaign for Barisan Nasional (BN) and they only won 140 federal seats but this time, the coalition fared even worse, winning only 133.
Can the BN government actually stop pandering to the extremists, as Dr Mahathir recommends, and understand the thinking of the moderates and convince them to work together to promote stability?
It only depends if the ruling coalition can determine who and where the lunatic fringe are. They should be looking at their own backyard, not across the aisle. – October 28, 2013.
Mamak is very afraid. Without his sons holding the top or second post, with waning support, sooner or later his “empire” will collapse. No evil man ever die peacefully.
The lunatic fringe in Malaysia HAS been found and it consists of UMNO and it’s lackeys, PERKASA, PEKIDA, JAKIM, etc.
Between the Devil and the deep blue sea, Malaysians should chose Najib over Anyone tainted by Dr. Mahatir’s political legacy.
Lunatic fringe?
UMNO is the core, the nucleus, the embodiment of lunacy. What fringe?
If you want to sapu everything, put your own family, your own relatives, just like all the generations and generations of kings and queens; thing is history tells us that no matter how many family members were in power; the dynasty will fall because the same things that last for too long will become boring and people will revo for something new.
///Has it got to do with his son Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir’s close loss in the Umno polls?///
Thank goodness the reincarnation of dreaded Mahathirism was foiled by the Umno polls.
Hell hath no fury like a Tun scorned..Najib will need to thread very carefully. Take heart – Take heed Najib..If he is taking on the old man, Then he is playing a dicey game with an old master who probably wrote the book “How to play dirty Malaysian politics for dummies”.
Has anyone ever thought of measuring the width of Mahathir’s mouth? Maybe, we can have a zipper tailor-made for him on his 89th birthday?
For an experienced former head of government, Mahathir’s speeches have continued to stink of racism and his thoughts seem bizarre. Every time he opens his mouth these days he seems either to spew out venom or spew out lies and hatred. Mahathir should realise that his game of race politics is as obsolete as he is today.
Yeah, Mahathir is right – always right! Ibrahim Ali says today, he is a good frog – or rather a good dog! That’s the lunatic fringe for you.
Some people are privileged to enjoy complete freedom of speech that they could just twist black to white and white to black, call the moderate lunatic and the extremist as moderate and yet get away with a smirk and wry smile in disdain of those who either couldn’t have such privilege or otherwise are taken in by what has been said.
Everyone of them is a lunny!!!
And they have made this country their assylum!!!
All Malaysians must make it their mission in life to kick UMNO/BN out of Putrajaya.
Nothing less will do!!!!
Mahathir is saying, the Fake & Pnony should stop being doing anything to look fake & phony and just do the extremist way and keep denying it is. In other words – he likes what his son Mukhriz is doing – hate politics, denying it and even telling the Chinese they should vote for him. (AND he wonder why people think Mukhriz is his proxy?)
The truth is its not that Najib don’t want to do what Mahathir wants, its just that they don’t want to live in a country, even with all their obscene ill-gotten wealth, that results from what Mahathir is telling them to do.
Clearly Mahathir is not giving up insisting on what he wants and in fact is just sinking his teeth to rid of Najib & Co. Like Mubarak and Mugabe, even on their death bed he will keep trying. Its just him.
Bigjoe,
I don’t think Mahatir can get rid of Najib now. At least, not if the recent UMNO elections are to be believed.
If you recall, after Najib won the “unwinnable” GE13, one of his first visits was to Mahatir. I’d loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation but I can guess.
Now that the “real” elections, ie the UMNO elections, are over, and all of Najib’s cohorts are back in, Najib has shown he has what it takes to counter Mahatir.
So, based on those two above incidents, Mahatir seems to have been effectively de-fanged by Najib.
The mongrel in Mahatir might keep fighting on even if the battle seems hopeless but without any teeth, Mahatir is only trying to “gum” Najib to death.
Hm… maybe Mahatir’s saliva could be poisonous, I dunno.
Let the dog bark at the sun! I will not shut my big mouth.
Since we are on lunacy, the opposition is better off telling Sarawakians and Sabahan that basically UMNO/BN is lying to them about “Allah” issue – the constitutional lawyers said it as much.
The court of Appeal decision basically means that Najib and the Cabinets are lying. Unless the judicial decision is overturned, it means UMNO/BN long term plan MUST BE to colonized and absolutely control Sabah and Sarawak and their religious rights surppress even denied eventually. All the excuse that they can use it in the Al-Kitab and in Sabah & Sarawak are just that – convenient excuses that only motivates UMNO/BN to colonized and control Sabah & Sarawak..
The fact is Sabah is already colonized although some hope remain of over-throwing the colonials. Its no coincidence that the same issue of Herald was blocked in Sabah but not in Sarawak.
Cabinet, Najib and even Taib’s word MEANS NOTHING..ITS UNRELIABLE..Sarawak is in CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER especially after Taib is gone. Sabah is already badly hurt and wounded and Sabahan clearly can’t defend themselves.
IBM.
International Big Mouth.
And BMW.
Big Mouth’s Wife!
The battle the centuary has begun:
Hantu vs Hantu!
The lunatic fringe are not from the Opposition but are from UMNO and its cohorts. Dr M is undoubtedly their chairman. Over the past several months, the lunatic fringe have accused the Chinese of trying to usurp political power from the Malays, telling the Chinese and Indians to return to China and India, asked what more the Chinese still wanted, charged that the Chinese got rich because they were involved in illegal activities, accusing the DAP of trying to make Christianity the State religion in Malaysia etc etc etc. The fact that the Government has not taken any action against the lunatic fringe can only mean that they have the connivance of UMNO.
Please gentlemen do something to this rat Mamak who is a pain to all malaysians
Since when “Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was acceding to demands from extremists in the opposition”?? He can’t even name what was their demand. Unless the so called opposition refers to Najib’s oppositions in UMNO since he had retract the 1Malaysia, NEM and now those general election promises are now thrown out of the window. Forget about Janji ditepati, more important for him pangkat ditepati.