Malaysia’s Mahathir turns 98 with ‘Malay supremacy’ on his mind. Is he ‘obsessed’ with Anwar?
- With an already untouchable political legacy, the ex-premier faces mounting questions over his motivation for his new ‘Malay Proclamation’ activism
- Mahathir warns that PM Anwar’s new multiracial administration will erode the rights and privileges of Malays, who account for nearly two-thirds of voters
The document has since become a rallying point for the country’s Malay nationalists, with leaders of the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition – which forms a formidable and exclusively Malay opposition bench in parliament – giving their stamp of approval.
The answer appears to be Anwar, observers say.
“There is a side of Mahathir which is genuinely concerned with what he perceived as the erosion of Malay supremacy, which he and many Malays hold to be sacrosanct,” said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
“There is also a side of Mahathir which is obsessed with hating and thus attempting to detach Anwar from the premiership. So what we are witnessing now is the interplay between these two sides of Mahathir,” he added.
