KUALA LUMPUR – The war of words between former prime ministers Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is further escalating – with Najib accusing his “mentor” of pressuring him into abusing his power.
In a Facebook post today, Najib alleged that when he (the Pekan MP) led the federal government, Dr Mahathir pestered him to back projects that are linked to people close to him (the Pejuang chairman).
“Yes, I am forever indebted to Tun for supporting me to be the prime minister.
“Maybe he has pressured Pak Lah (Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) to support me, but the problem is when I became the prime minister, Tun kept pressuring me to support his cronies’ projects.
“When I rejected them, Tun meroyan (became emotionally unstable) and began efforts to conspire with Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to topple me in 2014, before 1Malaysia Development Bhd became an issue.”
Najib said this is corroborated by Dr Mahathir’s son, Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir, in a court testimony in July 2017.
At the time, Mukhriz had admitted, during cross examination in a defamation suit against Najib’s then press secretary Datuk Seri Tengku Sharifuddin Tengku Ahmad, that his father and Muhyiddin had plans to topple Najib.
“I agree that my father tried to topple Najib and this plan started not in 2015 but much earlier, in 2014,” he had said at the high court here.
Earlier today, Dr Mahathir issued an open letter to Johor voters in which he, among other things, said Najib was nothing like his father, the country’s second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, adding that the latter is a nationalist while the former a thief.
According to the Pejuang chairman, his contempt for Najib was not personal, and that this only brewed after the latter’s involvement in the 1MDB scandal.
Dr Mahathir said that, prior to this, he had even personally supported and pushed for Najib to become the deputy prime minister when Pak Lah held the country’s top government post.
In his response, Najib said he did not quite understand Dr Mahathir’s intention of continuing to attack him, despite having vowed previously not to mention his name.
“After his first open letter on February 15, he said he won’t mention my name anymore, but the overall content of his second letter today is about me.
“The name ‘Najib’ is mentioned 10 times in the one-and-a-half page letter.”
The relationship between Dr Mahathir and Najib had soured beyond repair following revelations of abuse of power and corruption involving 1MDB, with the former quitting Umno to form his own party Bersatu, and later Pejuang.
Dr Mahathir would lead the then opposition to win the 2018 general election and was appointed prime minister for the second time, before a power struggle in February 2020 led to the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government. – The Vibes, February 20, 2022
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