KUALA LUMPUR — In yet another salvo at Mr Najib Razak, Dr Mahathir Mohamad accused the embattled prime minister of being the “proxy” of Singapore and businessman Low Teck Jho.
“Najib has his own advisers, including three Brits. He paid foreign consultants to advise him on government matters. He also asked Singapore whether he should build the bridge or the high-speed train. When Singapore said no, he shelved those projects. Jho Low is his friend and seems to have considerable hold on him. “The fact is that he is their proxy not mine. If he had behaved as my proxy there would have been no 1MDB etc,” he said on his popular blog yesterday (July 16).
The former prime minister had refrained from attacking Mr Najib during the holy month of Ramadan and had only touched on the 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB), which had incurred RM42 billion debts in just six years of operations. Previously, the statesman had been highly critical Najib, even repeatedly asking the latter to step down. Dr Mahathir said it was not true he wanted Mr Najib to go because the prime minister did not listen to him. He said despite Mr Najib’s refusal to build the bridge linking Malaysia to Singapore or continue with the double-tracking electrification railway project, he continued to campaign for Mr Najib at the last general election.
“He also did not accept my views that BR1M and carrying placards ‘I Love PM’, ‘1M4U’ etc should be stopped. Nor did he accept many other things I told him not to do or to do if he wanted to be popular. He says ‘cash is king’. Still I supported him during the 13th general election and after. “I did not ask him to step down until the 1MDB scandal. He did not answer to the accusation made against him,” he added. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
“Najib has his own advisers, including three Brits. He paid foreign consultants to advise him on government matters. He also asked Singapore whether he should build the bridge or the high-speed train. When Singapore said no, he shelved those projects. Jho Low is his friend and seems to have considerable hold on him. “The fact is that he is their proxy not mine. If he had behaved as my proxy there would have been no 1MDB etc,” he said on his popular blog yesterday (July 16).
The former prime minister had refrained from attacking Mr Najib during the holy month of Ramadan and had only touched on the 1Malaysia Development Fund (1MDB), which had incurred RM42 billion debts in just six years of operations. Previously, the statesman had been highly critical Najib, even repeatedly asking the latter to step down. Dr Mahathir said it was not true he wanted Mr Najib to go because the prime minister did not listen to him. He said despite Mr Najib’s refusal to build the bridge linking Malaysia to Singapore or continue with the double-tracking electrification railway project, he continued to campaign for Mr Najib at the last general election.
“He also did not accept my views that BR1M and carrying placards ‘I Love PM’, ‘1M4U’ etc should be stopped. Nor did he accept many other things I told him not to do or to do if he wanted to be popular. He says ‘cash is king’. Still I supported him during the 13th general election and after. “I did not ask him to step down until the 1MDB scandal. He did not answer to the accusation made against him,” he added. THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
