Political analyst James Chin is to the opinion that Mahathir might make a comeback.
I don't know about that. In my mind, I am quite sure that Mahathir is a spent force.
Mahathir is almost 100 years old and he does not have an organization or machinery to back him.
Since he resigned in 2003, we can clearly see that Mahathir is not an esteemed figure, whose wisdom and counsel is sought out by younger politicians.
It is precisely because Mahathir’s successors in Umno, Pak Lah and Najib, do not see him as a wise person, whose advice and counsel is invaluable to them, that their relationship with him became estranged.
In reaction to his deteriorating relationship with his successors in Umno, Mahathir left Umno, which then left him bereft of the backing of a powerful organization and machinery.
Without a powerful organization and machinery, Mahathir only has his brand to keep himself relevant.
Brand Mahathir, as we can see in his foray into Pakatan Harapan in 2018, is something politicians outside of Umno only seek to exploit, not value.
Pakatan Harapan only intended to use the “Brand Mahathir” to get them to Putrajaya. They had no desire to submit to his directions or actually give him any real power once they arrived at Putrajaya.
Even if Mahathir leads PN today, PN also will likely just desire to to use Brand Mahathir to get them to Putrajaya.
Just like DAP and PKR had no desire to actually follow his lead in 2018, Bersatu and Pas are not going to care very much for his direction either. They have their own leaders, system, methods and ideologies, which doesn't recognize Mahathir's relevance and which Mahathir cannot identify with.
One’s position in an organization is something that takes a lifetime to cultivate. The nature of relationships and entanglement is as such, that the longer one belongs in an organization and the higher one is stationed, one’s presence and influence will pervade throughout the organization, to the point that the organization itself will identify with one.
As long as one remains in that organization, one will have immense power and strength, because one’s power and strength is backed by the organization itself.
This power and strength, however, is not transferable.
When one leaves that organization and joins another organization, one has to leave behind that power and strength.
Without Umno and BN, Mahathir will never be able to wield any real power.
Without any real power, Mahathir is not going to be able to establish any legacy, in terms of ideology or successors.
The chances that Mahathir will be able to establish Mukhriz as a future PM of Malaysia is next to nil. Mahathir doesn’t have that clout and Mukhriz, to be frank, is just not cut out for it.
James Chin argues that Mahathir’s “legacy is assured. You cannot write a book about Malaysia without mentioning his name”.
This is true, but having a legacy alone is not enough, what sort of legacy also matters?
Mahathir would obviously like to be remembered as the person who modernized Malaysia, or as the Bapa Pemodenan Malaysia.
But without him having control of the narrative, he might lose this legacy.
To be frank, I also believe that the credit for modernizing Malaysia should rightfully go to Mahathir’s predecessors, who laboured to enable the conditions for Malaysia to rise and progress.
They are the ones that laid the foundation of modernization. They are the ones who created an efficient and highly respected civil service, courts, schools, institutions, processes and policies.
It is they, through their example and conduct, that made Malaysians aspire to become educated, hardworking, humble, talented and virtuous people.
These are what made Malaysia an attractive destination for investments.
Mahathir’s predecessors are also the ones who established and developed our oil and gas sector as well as our plantation sector to the point that we had excess funds. Without these excess funds, the bridges, highways and other infrastructure that were built during Mahathir’s reign would not have been possible.
Mahathir on the other hand, was just someone who arrived at the time when the seed that they planted and cultivated, had turned into a fruit bearing tree.
Just because he was lucky enough to reign as the Prime Minister during harvest time, it doesn’t mean that he was the one that is responsible for the harvest.
Whatever we do today, the results will only show in the future.
Just like how it is our first 3 Prime Ministers in the 60s and 70s that should be credited with the good times we had in the 80s and 90s, Mahathir should actually be judged for the way that Malaysia has fared in the 2000s till today.
If you watch the movie “ Anwar: The Untold Story” that came out a few months ago, you can clearly see that if Anwar continues to reign, Mahathir will be blamed for many of the problems that we are seeing in Malaysia today.
If Anwar continues to reign, I will bet my last ringgit that Mahathir’s legacy will be blackened to the point that he will be seen as the cause of racial tension, corruption, nepotism and the debasement of our civil service, courts, schools, institutions, processes and policies.
It is not hard to pin the blame of all that ails Malaysia today on Mahathir either, because it is not even untrue.
If I were to put to you: “Although we were a third-world country during the time that Tunku, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein reigned, we were set to become a first-world country by the time they left, but although we were set to become a first world country when Mahathir reigned, we look set to become a third world country after he left,” most of you reading this will believe it to be instinctively true.
Everybody assumes that Mahathir is just being difficult today because things are not going his way, but the truth is that he is probably just petrified.
In his extreme old age, there is a very real prospect that his legacies will be wiped out and his past sins might be catching up to him.
Some people run when they are afraid, but others stand and fight. Mahathir, to his credit, has always been the second type. Say what you want about him, but that Mahathir is a fighter is something that no one can deny.
Mahathir has won all of his previous fights. He has continuously won for longer than many of us are alive.
Now in his sunset years, he faces the prospect of a final and grand defeat. It is a defeat so final and grand that it might wipe out all of his previous wins.
Mahathir is like a man who has done whatever needs to be done to climb to the highest position in life, just to find out that in the end, he has reached an edge from where there is no place to go but down.
Behind him, he can hear the footsteps of past sins catching up to him. He is afraid that everybody that he pushes down in order to climb up will soon be reaching him. When they reach him, he is sure that they are going to push him over the ledge.
In response to his fear, like a cornered beast, he is lashing out even at the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
Contrary to what most people believe, as we age and come closer to death, we don't lose interest in life. We will instead just imagine continuing our life in some other manner. Some people imagine a life that will continue in a paradise or a heaven, others imagine it to continue through the lives of their children or grandchildren while some imagine it to continue in the legacy they live behind. To those who imagine that their life will continue with the legacy they leave behind, seeing your legacy debased is as painful as seeing all your children die before you or believing that the gates of heaven will not be open for you.
It is the fear and pain of knowing that your legacy will almost certainly be debased and go to ruin, that is what is prompting Mahathir to do whatever it is that he is doing.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy is the author of “While Waiting for the World to end”. He was a columnist at FMT and a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, Malaysia-Today, MalaysiaNow, MalaysiaKini and Focus Malaysia.
TheRealNehruism is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
