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The Triangle Power Struggle – Mahathir Trapped Himself By Announcing His Refusal To Work With UMNO



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Feb 27 2020
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Like the Chinese ancient Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Malaysia’s current political crisis has transformed into three major coalitions fighting for the throne. The triangle power struggle consists of Mahathir’s coalition (63 MPs), Anwar’s coalition (92 MPs) and BN-PAS’ coalition (61 MPs). None of them has the magic number of 112 MPs required to form a simple-majority government.

 

The current situation is so fluid – and exciting – that any articles written could be obsolete by the time it’s published. Just when it was thought that Mahathir Mohamad, the 7th prime minister who suddenly resigned, but appointed by the Agong (King) as the interim prime minister, would be crowned again as the 8th prime minister, it’s now possible that the 94-year-old man could be jobless.

 

And all that could happen within this week alone. The triangle power struggle emerges primarily because Mahathir wanted to create what is known as a “unity government”, an ideal government where all the good, bad and ugly politicians from both sides of the political divide have a chance to be included in the government. In short, it’s one big happy family without the Opposition.

Mahathir Mohamad - Gloomy

Unfortunately, there’s one huge problem. The country is plagued with racism, discrimination, extremism, xenophobia and all forms of bigotry that you can find in the dictionary, thanks to over 60 years of one-party rule. Coincidentally, Mahathir, the man who now wants a unity government is also the same man who had spent more than a third of those 60 years destroying the once harmony country.

 

It’s not hard to understand why so many people distrust Mahathir to lead a unity government. He was the man who practised dictatorial-style leadership and gerrymandering and misused institutional tools to manipulate an electoral process to stay in power for 22 years (from 1981 to 2003). And now he expects people to give him a blank cheque to rule until his death like Peter the Great?

 

Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition refuses to work with BN-PAS coalition and vice-versa. Both coalitions accuse each other of being racist, extremist and whatnot. At the same time, Mahathir appeared in television yesterday (Feb 26) saying UMNO (a component party of BN) cannot join his unity government. The old man, however, welcome UMNO members but not UMNO party.

PAS Hadi Awang and UMNO Zahid Hamidi - Whispering

Therefore, all bets were off. The alliance of BN (Barisan Nasional) and PAS Islamist party immediately withdrew their support for Mahathir as the leader of the country. To make matters worse for Mahathir, Anwar’s PH coalition also made a stunning U-turn about supporting the old man after he refused to chair the Harapan presidential council meeting on Tuesday (Feb 25).

 

Mahathir’s refusal to attend the meeting means he had no intention of restoring the previous PH-led government, which also means all the pre-election manifesto would be thrown into the trash bin. Mahathir only wants PH’s powerful bloc of 92 votes, but not the manifesto. He wanted the free hand to explore a new unprecedented political landscape that has not been tested.

 

Hence, the remaining component parties of PH (Pakatan Harapan) – PKR, DAP and Amanah – were left with no choice but to nominate PKR president Anwar Ibrahim as the next prime minister. In what appears to be proof that the coup circus was orchestrated by Mahathir himself, the old fox has today decided to return back to his party Bersatu and resumes his chairmanship.

Prime Minister-in-Waiting – Anwar Ibrahim

Mahathir’s support came from Bersatu (25 MPs), Azmin Ali and his 10 PKR traitors (11 MPs), Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs). Yes, despite whining and crying about being backstabbed by Azmin, astonishingly, the former deputy PKR president is about to join Bersatu, which would enlarge Mahathir’s party to 36 MPs, just 3 seats less than UMNO.

 

One of the reasons Pakatan Harapan decided to nominate Anwar, instead of Mahathir as promised earlier, was that the former premier appeared to have trapped himself when he announced to the world that there’s no way he can work with the corrupt UMNO party. That would mean Mahathir will not be able to leverage on BN-PAS’ 61 MPs to achieve his ambitious unity government.

 

That explains why Anwar’s coalition was incredibly happy when they went to see the King yesterday. Pakatan Harapan’s 92 MPs have a superior number than Mahathir’s 63 MPs. For Mahathir to go back to UMNO and beg for support would be extremely humiliating. Anwar probably was betting that Mahathir would be forced to rejoin PH coalition – quite a clever strategy.

Pakatan Harapan - Opposition New Pact

In the eventuality that Mahathir abandons or modify his unity government concept to suit PH’s agenda, everything would be back to its previous configuration, allowing the PH coalition to rule again. Anwar’s camp was also betting that Mahathir would not dare go for a snap election, as doing so would certainly allow the return of BN – and Najib Razak – to the federal government.

 

But it seems Anwar had chosen to count his chickens before they hatch – again. Mahathir, in his desperation, may go bonkers and work with UMNO after all. The state of Johor has already collapsed after Mahathir’s party decided to work with UMNO in forming a new state government – another betrayal. Without approval from the top, Bersatu Johor will not dare switch sides.

 

After meeting with the King today, Mahathir pre-emptively revealed that a special Dewan Rakyat sitting will be convened on March 2 to see who will be the next prime minister. Mr. Mahathir has also confirmed that Bersatu (PPBM) president Muhyiddin Yassin will be one of the candidates to be offered as the prime minister in the Lower House of Representative.

Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin with PM Mahathir Mohamad

The biggest giveaway that Mahathir was the hidden hand behind the recent coup to topple his own Pakatan Harapan government is that he now says he can accept if Muhyiddin wants to work with UMNO en bloc. Exactly how could he return to his party after allegedly being betrayed by Muhyiddin, let alone endorsing his lieutenant’s plan to join forces with UMNO?

 

Now that the King has told Mahathir to fly kite with his unity government, the old fox is tangled in his own web of deceit. If indeed he was betrayed by Muhyiddin and Azmin, he could easily ordered Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs) to support Anwar’s coalition, instantly gives Pakatan Harapan a comfortable simple majority of 119 parliamentary seats.

 

Even the idea of going to the Dewan Rakyat to elect among its members a prime minister is unconstitutional. The King must first appoint a prime minister among the 222 MPs whom in his judgement is likely to command the confidence of the majority. The Lower House of Representative is just a place to test whether an “existing” premier enjoys the majority support.

The King Sultan Abdullah and Queen Azizah of Pahang

Obviously, Muhyiddin is the backup plan. The party’s bloc of 63 MPs, if combined with UMNO-PAS’ 61 MPs, will be sufficient to form a new government with a majority of 124 parliamentary seats. However, that depends on whether UMNO-PAS is ready to play ball. Based on UMNO’s current preparation for a snap election, it doesn’t seem so.

 

The Johor move was a gift to impress upon UMNO-PAS to support Muhyiddin as the next prime minister, instead of Anwar Ibrahim. The wisdom behind that was that if Muhyiddin fails to win the beauty contest in the Dewan Rakyat, then a snap election will be called. If that happens, the state of Johor won’t matter because Bersatu on its own will be wiped out completely.

 

Anwar’s Pakatan Harapan has until March 2 to swing kingmakers Sarawak-based GPS (18 MPs) and Sabah-based Warisan (9 MPs) to his camp. He could, for example, offer deputy prime minister posts for them. Anwar probably should call Mahathir’s bluff that he’s willing to let crooks like Najib Razak and Zahid Hamidi free after all the efforts he had done to prosecute them.

Lim Guan Eng with Anwar Ibrahim and Mat Sabu

When Mahathir decided to play the coup game, there’s no turning back. This is perhaps his final war for glory, or death. The 94-year-old fox will play all his trump cards to win the throne. However, there’s something that Mahathir can never possess – the awesome brotherhood and loyalty displayed by Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng and Mat Sabu (all of them were once prisoners of Mahathir) – built since 1998.

 

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Comments

Mahathir following his strategy in 1994 against
PBS in Sabah and against BN in Sabah in 2018.

“the awesome brotherhood and loyalty displayed by Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng and Mat Sabu”

Well, the “brotherhood” of the Three Kingdom didn’t quite work out, did it?

They lost!

None of the awful three that makes the PH Mafia has the quality of the sworn brothers of the Three Kingdom.

At best, not too few would swear at our kampong back alley “heroes”.

Nothing to learn from these wonders, move along now..!

Enough of Mahatir and his bullshit. He is a PM yes!! not a Prime Minister BUT a serial and a deadly Prime Manipulator in all the sequences that leads to the wreckage of this wonderful country. I hope the legal fraternity do look into aspect of a possibility to haul him up and charge him for creating commotions and unrest in the country. How evil can a person be and at 95 years of age he has not changed at all and he only love himself and his family members while the rest can burn to ashes. We the rakyat of Malaysia plead to the Agong that he has tendered in his resignation and accepted , please withdraw the acceptance of him to be Interim PM and follow the constituitional protocol of the DPM taking over. If Mahatir is allow to continue whatever that is existing in Malaysia will be wiped out and only he himself will be the ruler. His actions and speeches is telling all for only his self interest .

Well, the latest breaking news is now in : that Umno/PAS have thrown in their support for Muhyiddin to be the PM, and that the king had disallowed for a special parliamentary seating on the 2nd March as called by Dr Mahathir.

It is quite obvious that this coup was engineered by old fox Mahathir and by his own reckoning he seemed to have covered all bases : if his unity govt fails ( which it did ), he can fall back on plan B, in which he will go nuclear, working with Umno and Pas to deter Anwar as PM, although he himself had ousted himself as PM too.

GPS had recently revealed that Dr Mahathir had deployed the MA63 card to them and apparently this is the lure to bring GPS into the fold.

We have to wait for the outcome of the king’s meeting with his royal brothers and with the latest news also of the AG resigning, one wonders where the Najib’s trial is going to. Will the trial be called off and all the charges against Zahid and the rest of the crooks be dismissed if Muhyiddin prevailed and become PM ? What are the rewards for Azmin and his 10 conspirators ? With one foot in the grave, perhaps Muhyiddin would make Asmin the Deputy PM cum Finance Minister cum Economic Minister ? And the finale cherry atop this coup cake would be the old fox Mahathir be made Mentor Minister with the final say to all and everything thing and he would again display another award winning acting by crying again Atok Sudah Tua bla bla bla.

So are we seeing PH sitting back in the Opposition bench once again or maybe there’s yet another miracle to appear on the horizon ?

“… maybe there’s yet another miracle to appear on the horizon ?”

The Snake Pharaoh kicking the bucket would be a nice miracle.

Or we will be resigned to the zombie forever “resigning”.

And the Curse forever returning to haunt us.

A Govt is being elected by majority Rakyat, the Rakyat cannot accept a Govt formed not voted in by majority Rakyat during GE14 but through back door even so called they have the majority with the power crasy without Rakyat’s mandates opposition parties(by numbers but illegal). It is not Democracy.

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