{"id":10894,"date":"2021-08-19T10:35:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T02:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=10894"},"modified":"2021-08-19T10:38:34","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T02:38:34","slug":"anwar-is-nothing-nobody-without-me-says-tun-mahathir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=10894","title":{"rendered":"Anwar is nothing, nobody without me says Tun Mahathir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kuala Lumpur, 19 Aug — Parti Pejuang Tanah Air chairman Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad dismissed the rhetorics by supporters of Anwar Ibrahim that he was the hurdle in Pakatan Harapan\u2019s bid to return to power, stating clearly that the PKR leader owes his rise on the political ladder to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former PM said it was Anwar who had rejected him in the aftermath of the collapse of the PH government last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never rejected him. Actually, Anwar is who he is because of me. Without me, Anwar is nobody. I promoted him up to become the deputy prime minister,\u201d Mahathir said in an interview with Bernama last night, in reference to his first tenure as PM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no problem for me to work with him. But the problem is, he doesn\u2019t want to work with me. And then, he said, \u2018Dr. Mahathir doesn\u2019t like me, he doesn\u2019t want to work with me, that\u2019s why we split up.\u2019 So the blame was on me,\u201d said Dr. Mahathir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahathir had appointed Anwar to his Cabinet, and in less than two decades, Anwar quickly rose through Umno ranks to become its deputy president and DPM before being sacked in 1998 on charges of sodomy and abuse of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"mahathir\"
Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mahathir\u2019s comments came after a palace deadline for MPs to submit the name of their choice of prime minister to form the next government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said PH\u2019s attempt to return to power had failed even when Perikatan Nasional was shaky due to its thin margin. But he said efforts to forge cooperation with PH under Anwar did not happen because of Anwar\u2019s insistence that Mahathir should not play any role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen what is my role? I cannot be the prime minister, I cannot be in the party. He rejected me. But he cleverly told the people that it was I who rejected him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said he has no interest in becoming prime minister for the third time and was only keen on leading the National Operations Council (Mageran) which he proposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not interested in the Cabinet. I just want to have power to address the Covid-19 problem,\u201d he said when asked if he would join the Pakatan Harapan (PH) Plus coalition if it formed the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. Not to become prime minister, just want to be the head of Mageran, or the National Rehabilitation Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said he was concerned as many were dying from Covid-19 while suicides were also on the rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kuala Lumpur, 19 Aug — Parti Pejuang Tanah Air chairman Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad dismissed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-politics"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",640,427,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",1000,667,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",1000,667,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",1000,667,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/reuters_mahathir_mohamad_20200714.jpg",712,475,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Politics<\/a>","tag_info":"Politics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10897,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894\/revisions\/10897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}