'Mahathir is not the sort of man to make peace with those he has fallen out with. He is a proud man.'

The above statement made by some is totally untrue. Contrary to what many believe, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is not malicious and is a bigger person than many think. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah almost toppled him in their bitter contest for the Umno presidency in '87. After losing to him, Razaleigh went to court and Umno was declared illegal.

He then formed Semangat 46 which created a lot of problems for Mahathir who went on to form Umno Baru. Yet many years later, when Razaleigh applied to join Umno Baru, Mahathir accepted him and many other Semangat 46 members back into Umno. In fact, despite many intense anti-Mahathir campaigns by many of these Semangat 46 members, Mahathir even brought some of them back into his cabinet, eg, Rais Yatim, Radzi Sheikh Fazdhir, Tengku Azlan, etc.

During his contest for the Umno presidency against Mahathir, Razaleigh had teamed up with Tun Musa Hitam as his running mate. Yet, Mahathir later appointed Musa to many high-ranking government posts including as Malaysian representative to the UN, Suhakam chairman, etc.

Most important, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was then a minister in Mahathir's cabinet and was openly aligned to Team B under Razaleigh during the leadership crisis. Team A was loyal to Dr M. After Mahathir won, Razaleigh and several prominent ministers immediately resigned from the cabinet.

Abdullah remained but soon after was sacked by Mahathir. Yet, many years later, Mahathir himself brought him back into the cabinet. Many would argue that it was because Abdullah won one of the vice-president's posts in the Umno election. However, if Mahathir was malicious, he could have just ignored Abdullah and left him in the wilderness.

Therefore, to say that our Dr M is 'too proud to make peace with those he has fallen out with' is untrue. People just do not know the history behind it all. Mahathir is really a much bigger person than all of them out there.