\u201cMy choices say that I\u2019m not good at assessing people. Perhaps I expected too much of them. They certainly showed strong potential to lead, but once they actually gained power, they changed completely.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen this happen again and again.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In his book, Mahathir explained at length his experience with Anwar, who was named his successor twice but whose prime ministerial ambition was never realized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir suggested that Anwar, who served as his deputy in the 1990s before their fallout culminating in Anwar\u2019s dramatic sacking from the government in 1998, was repeating the same method of trying to force him out of office in order to become the prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under an agreement among PH parties, Anwar was to take over from Mahathir. However, the succession did not materialize following the collapse of the coalition due to disagreements over the date for the promised transition of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir said the promised transition was only \u201cverbal<\/em>\u201d, and would only take place \u201cafter I had cleaned up the mess left behind by Najib<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo actual period was decided but it was assumed that I would not<\/strong> serve the full term.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir said his request for \u201cextra time\u201d<\/em> did not sit well with Anwar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was only Anwar who was putting pressure on me to leave sooner,\u201d<\/em> said Mahathir, adding that other parties had agreed to allow him to remain as prime minister in order to sort out the \u201cmess<\/em>\u201d left by the previous administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir then repeated his well-known assessment of the PKR chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom past experience, I knew that the man had no idea how to govern the country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Anwar\u2019s \u2018boys\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir said their relationship grew sour due to Anwar\u2019s impatience for the top job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInitially we got on very well. But after several years when it didn\u2019t look as if I would be retiring any time soon, his \u2018boys\u2019 \u2013 and this would happen again and again \u2013 began to attack me,\u201d<\/em> he said in a reference to a campaign within Umno accusing Mahathir of cronyism and nepotism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir said similar attempts were again played by Anwar\u2019s supporters during the 22 months of the PH government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt didn\u2019t take long for his boys to start attacking me again. When asked, he (Anwar) would say, \u2018I can\u2019t control them\u2019,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir also questioned Anwar\u2019s numerous visits to his office in Putrajaya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOff and on, he would drop by my office for a chat. He never talked about taking over from me or about my policies,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He said Anwar could have gotten updates on the government’s affairs from his party leaders, who were also in the cabinet, instead of getting it directly from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was not under any obligation to brief Anwar but if he had shown some interest and wanted to know more, I would have gladly obliged,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018He says what they want to hear\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mahathir painted Anwar as a man who plays to the gallery, giving an example of his talks on multiracialism and racism once he was booted out of Umno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhatever his intention was, he told them what they wanted to hear: that giving privileges to the Malays was wrong and that all citizens should be treated equally,\u201d<\/em> said Mahathir, adding that this contrasted with his own approach to empower the Malays in order to achieve economic equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite their famous differences, Mahathir said he had no personal quarrel with Anwar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He recalled their first meeting in 18 years after the dramatic events of 1998 when Mahathir visited Anwar in court while the latter was serving a five-year sentence for sodomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe talked like old friends, although of course, we didn\u2019t talk about why he was jailed,\u201d<\/em> Mahathir wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NMT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kuala Lumpur, Dec 13 — Dr. Mahathir Mohamad admitted that he is not a good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12654","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\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",1024,698,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1-300x204.jpg",300,204,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1-768x524.jpg",640,437,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",640,436,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",1024,698,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",1024,698,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",1024,698,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",1024,698,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg",697,475,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\/12654","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=12654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12656,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654\/revisions\/12656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"mahathir\"](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/anwar-mahathir-AP-280221-1024x698-1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n