COMMENT Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's latest round of griping that Umno leaders are keeping away after having earlier piled him with their worries about what the party and country were coming to is disingenuous.

Mahathir inculcated precisely this opportunistic - 'friends in fair weather, strangers in foul' – behaviour.

Mahathir spoke of this turn in the attitude of Umno leaders at a book launch ceremony yesterday.