Take for example the ongoing tit-for-tat between former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and former Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak on the Pandora Papers – with the former calling Najib, “Malaysia’s first criminal VIP” due to his ongoing court cases and delayed conviction for his involvement in SRC International.
This kind of attention seeking behaviour is how Mahathir remained relevant for so long both locally and internationally.
Many among the older generation still remember the various diplomatic rows Tun Dr Mahathir has caused, with the British back in the 80’s, to his many anti-Semitic rants throughout his premiership.
During his recent tenure as Prime Minister, his refusal to extradite infamous preacher, Dr Zakir Naik, who is wanted in India for alleged money laundering, terror funding, and hate speech which provoked terror attacks, have led to a diplomatic standoff between India and Malaysia.
On top of this, Tun Dr Mahathir doubled-down and rebuked New Delhi’s handling of the Kashmir issue and Muslim migrants at the start of the year.
The result: India’s subsequent boycott of Malaysian palm oil, one of our prized resources, with data showing that India only purchased just short of 15% of Malaysian palm oil between January to June 2020 compared to the same period of time in 2019 – from 2.6 million tonnes to 400,000 tonnes.
To highlight the severity this caused us, India is the largest importer of our palm oil – and one can only imagine the state our country will be in if it weren’t for the need to correct the relationship between both nations being a priority when the new government came in.
From time and time again Tun Dr Mahathir felt the need to reassert himself as the global leader of the Muslim world, while balancing the need to develop Malaysia – from blaming Soros and the Jews for the Bank Negara forex scandals amounting to more than $10 billion to the numerous tirades against Western powers.
Without a doubt, this time is no different. It is likely that Tun Dr Mahathir felt that he can still gain some influence globally despite seeing it wane day by day in Malaysia - where no one listens to him anymore and no sensible politician even thought of crossing the line by joining his new party, PEJUANG.
Of course, naturally nothing much can be done about it during the Pakatan Harapan days, as his son Mukhriz Mahathir, then Chief Minister of Kedah, was looking to lure more investments into the state including a RM1.2 billion green paper industry park, among others.
Blame should be placed onto the leadership of Pakatan Harapan whose subservience towards Mahathir have done nothing but destroy public support for their government.
But even greater blame should lie on Mahathir and his reckless style of leadership.
Core economic issues took a backseat to the jostling of power - all the while the government remained unable to mitigate the rising cost of living and weakening economy.
Where is the rise in the minimum wage? Where is the fairer PTPTN repayment scheme? Where are the social safety nets? What about the 1 million jobs promised for the youth?
Yet, the endless arguments will continue to tarnish our political system and it will still carry economic impacts that elite politicians like the Mahathir family will never feel in their lifetime. Bear in mind that all of this happened while the world is recovering from the COVID-19 crisis, as every country in the world is trying their hardest to ensure stability to attract foreign investment.
At the end, the rakyat and Malaysia will always pay the final price whenever Tun Dr Mahathir becomes a loose canon, with his polemics that only serve his ego and never the nation.
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