Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad rejoined the ruling party yesterday, one year after leaving in a huff over the way his successor was running the government.
Mahathir’s change of heart came a day after his favored candidate, Najib Razak, took over as the new prime minister. Najib was previously chosen the head of the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party.
“I believe his return will be an encouragement to UMNO and will help us to rebuild the party,” Najib told reporters after welcoming Mahathir back into the party at the prime minister’s office.
Mahathir said he was happy to return and urged those who had left along with him to follow suit.
“The image of UMNO has suffered somewhat in the last few years. The first thing to be done is to clean up the image of UMNO,” he said.
Mahathir resigned as prime minister in 2003 after 22 years in power, hand-picking outgoing prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as his successor. But within a year, Mahathir turned against Abdullah after he overturned many of Mahathir’s pet projects.
The former leader openly campaigned for Abdullah’s ouster, accusing him of inefficiency, corruption and nepotism for allegedly promoting his son-in-law and son.
Mahathir resigned from the party in May last year, vowing to return only after Abdullah was ousted.
Their public spat severely destabilized the party, the main component of the ruling National Front coalition.
As a result of the party’s disunity and growing public anger against the government, the Front suffered heavily in general elections last year.
The Front failed to get a two-thirds majority, conceding 82 seats to the opposition in the 222-member parliament and losing an unprecedented five states. It was the Front’s worst result in 51 years in power.
On Friday, hours after taking office, Najib announced he was freeing 13 people held under a law that allows indefinite detention without trial. He also lifted a ban on two opposition newspapers.
However, some 30 others remain detained under the Internal Security Act, and Najib refused to say if they would also be released.
Najib’s first test of popularity will be on Wednesday during three special elections to fill one seat in the federal Parliament and two seats in parliaments of two states.
Najib said Mahathir would join the campaigning for the by-elections.
He refused to say if he would give Mahathir a post in the new Cabinet that he is expected to announce next week.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS