KUALA LUMPUR – There may be opposition leaders willing to work with Umno after the coming general election (GE15), Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.
He did not support his claim but added that he did not feel “sure” if “today’s opposition leaders have changed their minds and feelings about Umno”.
“So it doesn’t arise whether I want to work with other opposition leaders this time, because the principle hasn’t changed,” the Pejuang chief and Gerakan Tanah Air chairman said on Facebook and his blog.
The 97-year-old two-time prime minister was clarifying remarks he made in a video last week, in which he talked about setting aside one’s ego to work with former rivals against common political enemies.
This was in reference to the 2018 election, when he and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim collaborated to oust Barisan Nasional from federal power for the first time in history.
Dr Mahathir’s remarks in that video had been reported by some media as an invitation to Anwar to collaborate again in GE15, but his aides have denied this.
In his latest Facebook post, the nonagenarian leader said he was not sure about where current opposition leaders stood with regards to Umno.
“I am also not sure if the opposition leaders still feel that Umno will ruin the country if they return to lead and will bring back kleptocrats to rule.
“Maybe there are opposition leaders willing to work with Umno after the election,” he said.
He did not name any opposition leader in his post.
Dr Mahathir, who had been prime minister in the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government, formed his current party Pejuang after PH lost federal power in 2020 following the Sheraton Move. He recently formed GTA as a coalition of small Malay-Muslim parties to contest in GE15.
He and Anwar have had a testy relationship over the past decades, with the former being responsible for sacking the latter as deputy prime minister and Umno member in the 1990s, resulting in the birth of the “reformasi” movement and the formation of PKR. – The Vibes, October 27, 2022
