Mahathir rejoins UMNO, but he is a liability to Najib

Doublespeak? Dr Mahathir begs to differ — The Malaysian Insider

Even the champion of contradictions has found it necessary to explain why he rejoined UMNO after slamming it as a corrupt political party and urging Malaysians to vote for the opposition as recently as January.

Realising that while he can still pull a crowd, his words no longer have traction with many Malaysians, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today attempted to justify his decision to jump onto the UMNO bandwagon, saying that when he left the ruling party in May last year, he said that he would renew his membership only after Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi stepped down as UMNO president and prime minister.

So since this condition has been met, he needed to keep his promise, said Dr Mahathir, who has displayed an unerring ability to argue both sides of the cases on several issues. When the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) issue broke out in November and several of the leaders were arrested under the ISA, he slammed the Abdullah administration for not opening channels of communications with the group. A year later, he hammered Hindraf for making extreme demands and ridiculous statements.

More recently, he described UMNO as a corrupt party and disgrace to Malays, and attacked the Youth wing for electing Khairy Jamaluddin as the Youth chief. But since rejoining UMNO over the weekend, he has sung a different tune about the ruling party, hitting the campaign trail and extolling the virtues of Barisan Nasional candidates in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau. While there has been little backlash of his changing positions reported in mainstream media, Dr Mahathir’s doublespeak has been challenged in the alternative media.

His latest posting on his blog appears targeted at the cynics. He said that he rejoined the ruling party because he has every confidence that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will be more successful in cleaning up UMNO than Abdullah. “I believe that he will not select corrupt people like Khairy and others as ministers and members of his administration,” he noted, saying that he also appreciated the fact that Najib made an attempt to be on friendly terms with him.

In addition, he liked that Najib was not only thinking about UMNO’s needs and wants but the needs and wants of Malaysians. Dr Mahathir noted that this was evident from his closing speech at the UMNO assembly where Najib distanced himself from calls by delegates for the party to control the government.

Dr Mahathir also justified his sudden change of heart about UMNO by praising Najib’s decision to go on a walkabout to meet Malaysians. “He’s convinced me that he is concerned about the welfare of people. Because of these reasons, I am confident that Najib will try and clean up the party and government of the corrupt and corruption. These signs will be clear when he names his Cabinet on April 8. Though Abdullah no longer leads UMNO, if there is evidence that he still has influence on UMNO, then I will consider that my conditions have not been met,” said Dr Mahathir.

The last sentence sounded like an ominous warning to Najib to ensure that Khairy and several other Abdullah loyalists are not included in the Cabinet line-up tomorrow. It also suggested that while he may not crave for an official position in the new administration, he wants his views to be taken seriously. It looks like Najib is going to play ball.

Khairy will not be in the Cabinet line-up and neither will be several UMNO politicians aligned to Abdullah who were successful in the recent supreme council elections.