Mahathir's End Heralds Mukhriz's End

Pejuang president Mukhriz Mahathir has attributed his party’s poor performance at the Johor polls to a lack of recognition by voters and inadequate time to prepare.

In his words, Pejuang was still a “new party” as it was only registered about seven months ago – yet would argue with such star power behind the party, it shouldn’t be that difficult to herald the return of Mahathir in a new party.

Unrecognizability is a lame excuse especially for someone who has had every opportunity given to him, by an extremely famous father.

After all, it is an open secret that Mahathir has spent a considerable amount of his post-retirement being mired in quid-pro-quo scandals involving his children.

We all saw the subsequent brouhaha, with both sides changing the story in a tepid back and forth that led to little in the way of actual investigation by the authorities. But in all honesty, are we surprised that another member of the Mahathir clan became embroiled in another accusation of unfairly using their positions for their own personal again?

This after all is an open secret, especially for those part of the Mahathir’s family. That sum of RM13 million which could have helped unfortunate Kedahans during the pandemic or even improve local infrastructure is pennies for the ever-wealthy Mahathir family.

Mahathir had always claimed that it has never been his intention to create a “legacy” in the local scene. He had numerously touched about his children’s massive wealth, for example, as one that is as a result of hard work than the affiliation with the family name itself.

For example, the Sarawak state government in 1994 (which regained prominence due to Najib) gave logging approval of around 1,000 hectares of timber to TANJUNG TIARA SDN BHD. Who was the lucky owner of Tanjung Tiara? No other than Mukhriz Mahathir, who not only a shareholder of Tanjung Tiara – but also served as its chairman.

So, what did Tanjung Tiara or Mukhriz Mahathir do to deserve such a gold mine falling on their laps? According to the legal advisor to the Sarawak government Fong Joo Chung, it was simply because Mukhriz’s father, Mahathir Mohamad was the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the time.

Similar questions of impropriety were also brought up during Mukhriz’s second tenure as Kedah Chief Minister. Below is an example of some suspect land sales in Kedah to Chinese businesses – a narrative that is being used by Mahathir himself to label his enemies as traitors to the Malay race. Surprisingly, in this incident, a total of 320 hectares just to a single Chinese company.

The rakyat needs no reminder that Mahathir has left a sordid legacy of nepotism and corruption, all which we are still feeling the effects of in the 21st century.

Now, in the end, Mukhriz was performing his duty as a Parliamentarian – to rightly question the government for its lacklustre (that is putting it nicely) reaction to the floods. But if Mukhriz himself isn’t willing to answer the pertinent questions surrounding him – he should go with the dinosaurs and join the legacy left behind by his father in the sunset.

After all, at this point, we are all infinitely better off without them.