Mahathir: Next election is last chance to clean up Malaysia

Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad yesterday said the next election will be the “last chance to clean up the country”, as he accused the current government, led by his erstwhile party Umno, of being corrupt.

- Hazlin Hassan

“I still feel the need to bring down this government because this government is a corrupt government. It did not come into power through elections,” Tun Dr Mahathir told a news conference at the launch of his latest memoir titled Capturing Hope: The Struggle Continues For A New Malaysia.

Although the next national polls are not due until 2023, the 96-year-old political grandee expects the vote to be held as soon as the middle of next year.

Umno’s uninterrupted six-decade rule ended in the 2018 General Election, when it was defeated by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) pact led by Dr Mahathir. But the party returned as part of the ruling alliance Perikatan Nasional in March 2020, after defections led to PH’s collapse. In August, Umno vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob became prime minister, replacing Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who had lost the support of 15 Umno MPs.