Another cock-and-bull story from Mahathir

COMMENT Dr Mahathir Mohamad should talk straight or just shut up.

Whenever he rebuts allegations of wrongdoing during his tenure as prime minister, he appears to sound not only defensive but deceptive as well.

Now he says the government’s bailout of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) in 2000, during his premiership, was “not the worst”. What does that mean? Is he saying that the bailout was all right simply because it was not the worst?

If he is still of sound mind and can understand this, let me say it is not all right. So what if it was not the worst act of using public funds? It was nonetheless committed. Should only the worst be held accountable?

That bailout cost Malaysians RM1.8 billion. And the government paid for the MAS shares at more than double their market price. Why was this so?

Well, Mahathir has become famous for blaming others; this time, he points to the Finance Ministry – for recommending the purchase at such a price. Has he forgotten he was the country’s chief executive officer then, and that it wouldn’t have gone through without his say-so, no matter which ministry or individual recommended it?

He says MAS had to be saved from bankruptcy because it was “necessary”. But why was MAS privatised to Tajudin Ramli in the first place when the latter had had no track record in the airline industry? Whom would Mahathir blame for this?

And what about the other bailouts? Bank Bumiputra, Renong, and Proton, which was bought by Petronas from DRB-Hicom when the latter was deep in debt?

Mahathir is always right

Mahathir tries to justify the MAS bailout by comparing it to the cancellation of the double-tracking project by his successor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. But that doesn’t make it right. Would making such a comparison absolve Mahathir from the questionable use of public funds under his watch?

Did Mahathir have a personal stake in that project to make him so angry towards Abdullah for cancelling it, and therefore so unforgiving of the latter?

The way he’s been slamming Abdullah, almost at every chance he gets, indicates he has a personal axe to grind with the man. But he’s been doing it so often now that it’s really getting tiresome.

The thing about Mahathir is, he is always right and everyone else wrong. Less than two weeks ago, he refuted allegations that when he was prime minister, he cowed the judiciary.

Has he forgotten that in 1988, his ruling party, which then enjoyed a two-thirds majority in Parliament, passed an amendment to Article 121 of the Federal Constitution which effectively removed the judicial power from the courts and made the judiciary subservient to Parliament?

When former chief justice Dzaiddin Abdullah brought up three weeks ago that this was so, and de facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz agreed, what was Mahathir’s response? “This is fitnah (slander),” he said. But why is it fitnah when the amendment was indeed made and we have seen the consequences of it?

To deflect from the real issue, Mahathir blamed Nazri for getting personal. “Nazri … you know, he never likes me,” he said. But what about Dzaiddin? Mahathir doesn’t mention it, but does Dzaiddin not like him too?

So that’s how Mahathir avoids facing up to the truth – use emotional prattle, throw the focus off himself onto others, make it seem that others are against him and that they want to run him down.