Dr M's spin on reasons for resignation rings hollow

Dr M claims that the reason he resigned is that the Harapan government had collapsed when Muhyiddin pulled Bersatu out of the coalition. This is what he said:

Strictly speaking, when Bersatu left Harapan, the coalition ceased to be the government. This meant that all members of the cabinet lost their ministerial positions. This included me. I had lost my position as prime minister. Resigning was only a formality.

But the reality is that there was no immediate collapse because Muhyiddin didn't clearly have a majority either. In fact, the King said he told Dr M not to resign but he insisted on doing so. Why?

Was it because he was a "gentleman" and knowing he had lost control of the majority, he decided to resign? Or could it be for another reason? Might that reason be that he wanted to be free from the shackles of Harapan and be able to form a so-called "unity government" where he could pick and choose whichever MP he wanted from either side without consulting any parties. In other words, a government where everyone is beholden to him while he is accountable to no one.

What made him think he could pull off such a ridiculous scheme? Well, at that time Bersatu, PAS and UMNO were saying they wanted him as PM. Meanwhile Harapan parties were also saying they wanted him as PM. So theoretically he had a super-majority in Parliament where both the ruling coalition and the opposition wanted him as PM.

He probably figured, if UMNO and gang were to reject him, he'd still have Harapan to fall back on. And if Harapan were to reject him, he'd still have UMNO and gang supporting him. With so much support all around, he became over-confident. So imagine his shock when both sides decided to reject his unity government pipe dream.

It's interesting that Najib himself has responded to Dr M's spin on his resignation, pointing out: "He even ignored Harapan's request to have a meeting a day after he resigned to discuss how they could save the Harapan government."

This is what led Harapan to then change its PM candidate to Anwar. Because Dr M had abandoned them. It was only later that the were able to come together again to try to find common ground. Strangely, both DAP and Amanah were keen on having Dr M as Harapan's PM candidate once more. But that was stymied (rightly so) by PKR.

Eventually, DAP and Amanah came around to supporting Anwar again. And that's where we are at right now. I don't think it's a bad situation for Harapan. Together they have 91 MPs. What does Dr M have? A total of 6 MPs. If you lump Warisan in there, he has 15 MPs.

It's very clear who has the upper hand here, even if Dr M and Shafie refuse to recognize the reality of the situation. They are simply in no position to make any demands.

No, Dr M did not topple BN, Harapan did

It's interesting how Dr M's acolytes keep pushing the canard that it was Dr M that toppled the BN government.

Harapan and its allies defeated BN.

DAP won 42 seats
PKR won 47 seats
Amanah won 11 seats

And how many did Bersatu win? A grand total of 13. Warisan won 8. You add those two together and you get 21. So, Dr M's faction won 21 seats. Are you telling me 21 seats defeated BN? No, 21 seats combined with Harapan's 100 seats was able to topple BN.

If Dr M and his cohorts' argument is that without the 21, Harapan couldn't have formed the government, they are right.

But it can certainly be said that without Harapan's 100, Dr M's team wouldn't have been able to form the government either.

I'm not great at math but it doesn't take a mathematical genius to know that 100 is a much higher number than 21. As such, it would be fair to say that Harapan contributed more to the victory than Dr M and Warisan.

Today, after all the defections, Harapan is left with 91 seats. And what is Dr M's faction left with? They've got 6 from Bersatu and 9 from Warisan = 15.

Again, my math ain't too good but I'm pretty confident 91 is a whole lot more than 15. Yet, it's this gang of 15 who wants to tell the gang of 91 what to do. It'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Wan Saiful says Dr M adamant on denying Anwar premiership

This is what Wan Saiful Wan Jan says:

"In various closed-door discussions and meetings after GE14 attended by this author, Mahathir was both adamant and consistent that he did not want to see Anwar succeed him as prime minister despite his public statements (to the contrary). 

"To Mahathir, Anwar is someone who would neither champion the Malays nor defend the privileges accorded to ethnic Malays by the Federal Constitution.

"Mahathir also believed that Anwar's plans could be thwarted if the three major Malay parties, Bersatu, Umno and PAS, were brought together so that a new Malay-led government could be formed - doing away with the Chinese-dominated DAP and the multiracial PKR in Pakatan Harapan in the process."

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Now, at the time of writing, we haven't seen any rebuttal from Dr M himself or any of his supporters. I suspect we will see that soon enough. They are likely to say it's a lie or spin it somehow as being taken out of context etc.

In the absence of any audio recordings of such conversations, we won't be able to know for sure whether what Wan Saiful says is true or not. But we can ask ourselves the following:

a) Does this sound like something Dr M would do?
b) Is it in line with his character to be that way?
c) Does it strike you as true?