YOURSAY 'The fact of the matter is that the Malays have in fact changed and today they are more aware of Mahathir's dubiousness.'

your say Don't Just Talk: Yes, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, reform is not good for the country and the best option is to let Malaysia rot further under the corrupted Umno government.

An independent judiciary free from executive interference is also not good for the country and the best option is to sack the chief justice, which you did.

A strong, credible opposition party is also no good for Malaysia and hence Operation Lallang was carried out in 1987, to arrest and detain without trial over 100 NGO and opposition leaders under the ISA.

Reform is no good because the power of the prime minister to use the cash reserves of state-owned oil company Petronas will be curtailed.

Reform to APs (approve permits) for importation of foreign cars is also no good because son Mukhriz will lose his lucrative income.

Mahathir, you have screwed up Malaysia since 1981 and please do Malaysians a favour and stay retired. It is only your cronies who will listen to you and not ‘bersih' Malaysians.

AB Sulaiman: When Mahathir retired in 2003, he claimed that his inability to change the Malays had been one of his great failures as prime minister.

Now he is saying that the Malays should not be goaded to change, fearing that changing and liberalising them might lead the country to ethnic unrest.

He infers that if they want to continue with their comfortable slumber on the bed of conservatism, just let them. This about-turn by Mahathir is absolutely amazing - the mother of all flip-flops.

The fact of the matter is that the Malays have in fact changed and today they are more aware of his dubiousness. This might well be the reason why he wants them to revert to their former ignorant days.

Vgeorgemy: Mahathir, are you capable of handling a constructive dialogue on the current ‘tension' due to BN's racist policy?

Malaysians have always revolted against these racist policies that benefitted only the government cronies but they were met with violent responses from the ruling regime.

During your regime we had two major incidents - Operation Lallang in 1987 and the cry for reformasi in 1998.

You were able to suppress the rakyat's aspirations for a just and fair society using the hated security laws. The current struggle is nothing but the extension of earlier struggles.

This time the rakyat are determined to play their role in deciding the administration of the nation. No amount of threats or right-wing disturbances or terror can stop us from claiming what rightfully belongs to the rakyat.

Clever voter: The so-called ethnic tensions are nothing more than the BN's old trick of divide and rule. It's time we got the consensus among all races that corruption, bribery and cheating must be gotten rid of.

Mahathir, while has been admired by some for ensuring a weak opposition, is increasingly losing his credibility with his out-of-date opinions.

It's time the nation moves on and vote for the removal of the many diseases that have weakened a once promising nation.

Swipenter: Mahathir, you are forever using fear mongering and racial strife as weapons to quell democratic aspirations of Malaysians.

Why should the Malays fear reforms? You are always implying that only the non-Malays want reforms and the Malays must resist reforms because reforms for a better Malaysia is bad for the Malays.

For 22 years you have been poisoning the minds of Malays that they are going to lose everything should the non-Malays be given equal rights as Malaysians.

If Malaysians are more race and class conscious now, it is largely due to you and your deliberate policies of classifying us into "royalputeras, Umnoputeras, bumiputeras and non-bumiputeras" and so on and so forth.

Anonymous_3f4a: What utter nonsense is Mahathir talking. Reforms can only prevent unrest, not to promote it. Mahathir is still living in yesteryear, unable to cope with the changing demographics of the country.

The Arab Spring occurred not because there were no democracy in that part of the world but because the younger generation demanded for more from their decades-long authoritarian regimes.

They despised the ruling elites who had held onto power for far too long without real changes in the power equations. They wanted more say. In short, it was a class struggle of sorts between the rulers and the subjects. Changes were inevitable.

The Arab Spring is not by any means unique and there is no difference in this part of the world. Understanding the dynamics of change sweeping across the globe, would help Umno leaders understand what's taking place within the country.

Mahathir's fears are therefore unfounded, drawn largely from his experiences in the 1970s.

Cala: What is Mahathir's fear? Let us revisit the votes obtained by BN and Pakatan Rakyat in the 2008 GE.

The total votes cast for parliamentary constituencies - BN (4,090,670 votes, or 50.14%), and Pakatan (3,786,399 votes, or 46.41%).

Given this close fight between the two, and due to gerrymandering efforts of Mahathir, BN won 140 seats (63.16%), while Pakatan 82 seats (36.93%). Indeed, if true democracy is alive, BN would get at most 111 seats, and Pakatan 103 seats.

When the regime is running out of new ammunition to contain the onslaught, Mahathir tries to put the blame on others when he is the person who should have taken the responsibility for causing the decline of BN.

Odin: Why does the AFP (as well as many others) still want to seek Mahathir's views, when it too obvious that he is a liar through and through?

For example, has the increase in the antagonism between races not been sparked off by him with his policies when he was the PM? Is he not the patron, if not the financial backer as well, of Perkasa?

And pray tell what reforms have PM Najib Razak instituted? Perhaps only idiots cannot see that his brand of reformation amounts to nothing more than undoing a knot here and tying two or three new ones there.

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