By THOMAS FULLER and LOUISE STORY
New York Times
JUNE 17, 2015
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PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia — Malaysia’s governing party is at war with itself, embroiled in a power struggle that is destabilizing the country and threatening the party’s nearly six-decade stretch of uninterrupted governance.
The battle has revealed itself publicly in a nasty spat between two political titans. Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister who turns 90 next month, is the chief architect of a political insurgency aiming to oust the man he helped put into office six years ago, Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Having lost none of the combativeness honed during more than two decades in power, Mr. Mahathir is pressing allegations of malfeasance in a sovereign wealth fund, criticizing the “lavish” lifestyle of the prime minister’s wife, and has resurrected troubling questions about the murder of a Mongolian woman, the mistress of a former top aide to Mr. Najib.
“I’ve had quite a long time in government, and I’ve learned a few things,” Mr. Mahathir said in an interview at his office on Wednesday in Putrajaya, the administrative capital he built from scratch when he was prime minister.
Mr. Najib “wants to leave his own legacy,” he said. “But what he does is verging on criminal.” Continue reading “Power Struggle in Malaysia Pits Former Premier Against a Protégé”