After Kajang move, comes Mahathir's move?

COMMENT When the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim bruised his administration's reputation, he had handpicked Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was regarded as a pious politician and nicknamed "Mr Clean" to be his number two and successor.

But when Abdullah, bolstered by the biggest ever victory for BN in his inaugural general election as prime minister in 2004, decided to deviate from the charted course and carve a legacy for himself, Dr Mahathir Mohamad became livid.

He resolved to take "Mr Clean" to the cleaners. The dagger was unsheathed and plunged into the jugular.

Four years later, Abdullah became the first BN leader to witness the biggest ever win and worst ever defeat in an election.

For the first time, the shell-shocked ruling coalition lost its two-third parliamentary majority and hold on several states.

Abdullah was forced to quit. And Mahathir rejoiced.

But now, he appears to be sharpening his dagger once again, this time for Najib Abdul Razak, who he had endorsed as Abdullah's replacement.

When Najib took over the reins in 2009, he wasted little time in ruffling Mahathir's feathers with his so-called moderate approach under the much-hyped 1Malaysia slogan.

From here on, things went downhill.

Mahathir, who is also the patron of Perkasa, said such movements were needed since Umno, under Najib, no longer defended the rights of the Malays.

In his bid to win over the hearts of non-Malay voters, Najib was accused of pandering too much to the Chinese.

But Najib's efforts failed to bear fruit in the last general election.

Scathing attack reveals patience is waning

Speculation had been rife that Mahathir had joined hands with Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who is seen as a hardline Malay leader, to topple Najib.

When Najib once declared himself as "Malaysian first and Malay second," Muhyiddin had responded that he was "Malay first and Malaysian second."

But the speculation of a conspiracy and rift was often dismissed.

But today, Mahathir penned a scathing attack on Najib indicating that his patience was wearing thin.

He stated that the latter performed even worse than Abdullah in reference to the last general election, where the opposition bloc secured a higher percentage of the popular votes.

The former premier, who is still influential in Umno, was also upset that Najib had caved in to opposition pressure and repealed the Internal Security Act, which only exacerbated the situation.

During Mahathir's tenure, the ISA, which allowed for detention without trial, was often used to silent dissent on the pretext of safeguarding national security.

In 1987, Mahathir had launched the biggest ISA dragnet, which witnessed the arrest of more than 100 people, including opposition politicians and activists.

In an ironic twist, Mahathir, who is often accused of making incendiary remarks on racial issues, claimed that Najib's policies were worsening race relations.

True enough, under Najib's 1Malaysia, the nation is being divided along racial and religious lines.

Observers had attributed this to pro-Umno forces wanting to hold on to their Malay power-base by creating an "us versus them" scenario in order to retain Putrajaya.

In the last polls, Umno, which secured 88 parliament seats, performed much better than its coalition partners such as MCA, MIC and Gerakan.

And so Mahathir's latest vitriolic outburst begged the question whether a move, similar to PKR's Kajang Move to oust the Selangor menteri besar, had been set in motion?

And would Najib suffer a similar fate as Khalid Ibrahim?

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RK ANAND is a member of Malaysiakini team