Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad urged the people to give their full support for BN in the next general election to provide Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak a stronger government so the people can demand that Najib revives the Internal Security Act.

najib in penang usm dialogue 220412 The maverick politician, who has been in support of the draconian law, is of the view that Najib's predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was marred by cronyism, passed a weak government over to Najib.

Hence Najib, fearing the loss of more support, succumbed to pressures from the opposition and abolished the ISA, Kwong Wah Daily today reports  Mahathir as saying

He said if Communist Party of Malaya secretary-general Chin Peng returned to Malaysia, or a religious extremist formed a political party, Malaysia would not be able to stop them from forming a communist or extreme government without the ISA.

Only by returning more seats to BN to form a stronger government, Mahathir stressed, could the people urge the government to bring back ISA.

Opposition not confident of winning GE 13

According to national news agency Bernama , Mahathir also said that the Bersih 3.0 demonstration in Kuala Lumpur on April 28 was led by the opposition parties to discredit the government because they were not confident about winning the next general election.

NONE Through the rally, Mahathir said, the opposition accused the government of cheating in the elections to reject the democratic results.

"....so they want to topple the government through the demonstration and Nik Aziz (Nik Mat, the PAS spiritual leader) said it is permissible to bring down the government in this manner (by demonstrations).

"They want to make Malaysia like Egypt and Tunisia, which were brought down through riots, and now Syria.... if the government does not fall, (they) can appeal to the foreign powers to help and bring down, even if it means using fire power.

'The people must think'

"The people must think and should not allow this thing to happen by giving a big win to the BN in the next general election," he said when delivering his speech at the forum organised by the Association of Former BN Elected Representatives (Mubarak).

Mahathir said the opposition would continue to create problems so that the government would look bad and dirty and thus had to be cleansed by the people.

He said a weak government could easily be blackmailed and must entertain all kinds of blackmail to the extent that Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim dared to announce that he would form the government on Sept 16, 2008, although this did not materialise.

In this regard, Mahathir urged Umno members to check their bad practice of bringing down candidates fielded in order to 'teach' the party president for not selecting them.

'Anwar impatient to become prime minister'

On Anwar, Mahathir said his former deputy was impatient to become prime minister and had planned to achieve his goal since he was imprisoned.

He said a landslide victory for the BN in the next general election would enable the rakyat to continue to enjoy progress and prosperity.

"Malaysia's achievement now is most amazing and far more progressive because the British, when they colonised Malaya then, had disgraced the Malays who were described as stupid and incapable of administering the country.

"The success was due to the deeds of the BN (previously Alliance) and now it is still a model country to most of the Islamic nations - which has led some people to become very keen to be the prime minister," he said.

Also present were Mubarak national chairman Abdul Aziz Rahman Kedah Mubarak chairman Abdul Rahman Ibrahim and former Umno leaders.