COMMENT It doesn’t take a political pundit to tell us that the two-week- long savage battle in Kedah is a proxy war between former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak that has ostensibly gone very wrong.

Much as I would want to comment on the decision proper, it is already history, as they say it. But one reminder for former Kedah menteri besar Mukhriz Mahathir (whom I surely would have sided with if I were to be directly engaged) is: you now know your true friends and foes; if you are cut out to be a leader, you will certainly bounce back.

As American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Likewise Mukhriz, the rakyat would surely want to see you rise again.