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Bhavan Jaipragas and Tashny Sukumaran
Published: 8:15am, 13 Jun, 2020
Updated: 9:24am, 13 Jun, 2020
Malaysia’s political crisis has been pitched by commentators as one between elder statesman Mahathir Mohamad and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin – but that is not how the 94-year-old veteran leader sees it.
For Mahathir, the real adversary remains Najib Razak, the former prime minister he trounced in the 2018 polls, only to have the defeated 66-year-old re-emerge as a political force.
In an extensive interview with This Week In Asia, the two-time former prime minister painted a picture of Muhyiddin as a weak acolyte of Najib, whom he believes will do everything he can to avoid jail time for the dozens of corruption charges he is facing over the 1MDB financial scandal.
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In the interview conducted over Zoom, Mahathir said the elaborate political plot that resulted in Pakatan Harapan losing power was an insurance policy for Najib as the possibility of lengthy jail time looms for the ex-leader. The verdict for the first of his five trials will be delivered on July 28.
“One thing is certain. Najib is not going to work hard to make Muhyiddin the prime minister if he is going to jail,” Mahathir said.
“He is not going to leave this man [to become] prime minister, and he goes to jail. He doesn’t want to go to jail. If he has a docile prime minister that he can influence, he may escape from going to jail.”
Mahathir said Najib was probably hoping to make a political comeback, even as prime minister, if he managed to get out of his legal problems.
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Amid speculation that Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin may be gearing up for snap polls, disputed Bersatu chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad suggested former Umno president Najib Abdul Razak may exert his influence to escape a possible jail sentence for alleged grand corruption.
In an interview with South China Morning Post (SCMP), Mahathir said there was no way that Najib would support Muhyiddin to remain as prime minister if he knew he was going to jail.
Muhyiddin, who is the Bersatu president, is reliant on Umno and PAS if his fledgling party is to survive a snap election.
However, Muhyiddin’s opponents, who have been purged from Bersatu, have warned that Umno and PAS may jettison his party during an election, spelling doom for Bersatu.
“One thing is certain. Najib is not going to work hard to make Muhyiddin the prime minister if he is going to jail.
“He is not going to leave this man (to become) prime minister, and he goes to jail. He doesn’t want to go to jail.
“If he has a docile prime minister that he can influence, he may escape from going to jail,” Mahathir said in the interview.
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/530052
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