The Malaysian Insight

PRIME Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad reminded his critics that his second round of leadership is bound by Pakatan Harapan’s promises of rule of law and freedom of expression.

In an interview with the Al Jazeera news agency, Dr Mahathir dismissed accusations by his detractors who said he was reverting to the strong-man approach said by critics to have defined his previous 22 years in power.

The 92-year-old said he was now bound by promises contained in the manifesto PH campaigned on and won by in the 14th general election.

“I have to go according to the manifesto set up by the coalition. I’m not free to do anything I like, because I am bound to carry on what the coalition has decided,” Dr Mahathir said in the Talk to Al Jazeera programme.

“The coalition has decided that we will go back to democracy and the rule of law.

“So I cannot just arrest anybody on my own today.”

Critics of Dr Mahathir, mostly from his former party Umno, have accused him of prosecuting disgraced former prime minister Najib Razak out of political “revenge”.

Najib was charged on July 4 with four counts of corruption in relation to RM42 million that flowed into his personal accounts from a government-linked firm when he was prime minister.

Najib’s fall from the heights of power was the result of Dr Mahathir and PH’s stunning victory in the May 9 polls.

During the GE14 campaign, PH was accused of being a marriage of political convenience as it included personalities who were jailed for dissent during Dr Mahathir’s first term between 1981 to 2003.

Dr Mahathir’s political victims included Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed for six years on abuse of power. Dr Mahathir and Anwar had reconciled their differences and teamed up to form PH.

PH was elected into power in GE14 on a platform of cleaning up corruption and freeing civil liberties that were suppressed during Najib’s administration.

In the Al Jazeera interview, Dr Mahathir said despite the bad blood between him and Anwar, both had set aside the past to take down Najib’s regime.

“So Anwar, myself, and many others who accused me in the past of all kinds of wrongdoing, we decided that the past was the past.

“We had to come together because overthrowing Najib was far more important.

“So we decided to form a coalition. Whatever that may have happened in the past is not as important as overthrowing Najib, because what Najib did was terrible for the country.” – July 7, 2018.