Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad threatens to sue PM Anwar Ibrahim for libel, reigniting political feud

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday threatened to sue incumbent Anwar Ibrahim for defamation over comments the 97-year-old said falsely implicated him and his family in amassing riches during his time in power.

The legal threat reignites a decades-old feud between Anwar and the nonagenarian Mahathir, who has verbally attacked the new government on an almost daily basis as he tries to revive his political career despite his advanced age, after losing his seat in Langkawi in November's election.

Earlier this month, Anwar made a thinly veiled attack on Mahathir, calling out an individual who had been in power for "22 years plus 22 months" of amassing gains, while the country's ethnic Malay majority "have lost everything" to the greed of the individual and their family and children.

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Mahathir was Malaysia's longest-serving premier at 22 years during his first tenure and returned to the post in 2018 for a 22-month stint.

The current prime minister did not mention any names in his speech, but said the individual had also gathered a group of elites in an attempt to stir hatred among Malays towards other races, on the pretext that they have lost power.

Mahathir said it was clear that Anwar's speech was aimed at him, and that his name was even mentioned in news reports and social media posts linking him to the prime minister's accusations.

"Even if I have heard all this before in the past, at that time he was not the prime minister. Now he is the prime minister, and the prime minister has a responsibility," Mahathir said at a news conference broadcast on social media, calling for a retraction and a public apology.

"You cannot make accusations without clear proof," he said.

For decades, Malaysia's politics have been defined by the feud that was sparked in 1998 during Mahathir's first premiership when he sacked Anwar as his deputy and later had him jailed for sodomy and corruption - charges Anwar and his supporters claim were politically motivated.

The pair appeared to have buried the hatchet in 2016, when Mahathir joined forces with his former protege's Pakatan Harapan coalition in a bid to take down then-premier Najib Razak.

Najib is currently serving a 12-year jail sentence for corruption and abuse of power at a former unit of scandal-tainted state fund 1MDB.

The truce collapsed a few years later, after Mahathir hesitated on a pledge to hand over the premiership to Anwar following their unprecedented win in the 2018 general election.

Anwar had to wait several more years to finally claim the premiership, eventually taking power after the king said he was most likely to command majority support in the 222-seat parliament following a deeply divided national election that left no single party with enough seats to form government.

Since taking office, Anwar launched a corruption crackdown which has so far ensnared former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin and several other leaders from his Malay nationalist Bersatu party for alleged corruption linked to Covid 19-era stimulus programmes.

Mahathir, who critics say is fomenting racial unease with his pro-Malay posturing, continues to remain active in frontline politics despite his loss in November.

Earlier this month, he was expected to lead the launch of a "Malay Proclamation" to call out what he described as the betrayal of the Malays by corrupt leaders, but the event was cancelled after several venues declined to play host.

Mahathir said Anwar's administration "talks a lot" but fails to deliver.

"For example, they said they want to bring down fuel prices, but it has not gone down," Mahathir said.

"The economy is still bad. The political situation is not stable. So they just talk. Every day there is something they want to say about all the things they want to do, but there are no results."

Mahathir also took a dig at the alleged snub by Saudi Arabia's king and crown prince during Anwar's recent visit to the kingdom, saying that he was always received by nations' top leaders during visits when he was prime minister.

Malaysia's foreign minister on Tuesday said in a statement that Anwar and the Saudi royals were unable to meet due to scheduling conflicts, and had nothing to do with any so-called snub.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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