An aide to the prime minister's wife, Rosmah Mansor, pointed out that former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is nothing like his own father, just as Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak is not like his father.

"In simple terms, Mahathir too is not the same as his own father. This is as his dad was a teacher, while Mahathir is a doctor who later became a politician," the aide, Rizal Mansor, said in a Facebook posting today.

He was responding to Mahathir's speech in Jitra several days ago, commenting on an earlier speech by Najib in his hometown, Pekan, where Najib said he was nothing like his father, Abdul Razak Hussein.

In his later speech, Mahathir had accused Najib of looking down on Razak by not truly emulating the man that fathered him.

"It is not difficult to understand what Najib said about the difference between him and his dad. He was differentiating the current lifestyle with that of those in an older age. There is nothing strange about that.

"While the kampung folk in Pekan understood what Najib meant easily, it is unfortunate that the man who was PM for 22 years had misinterpreted it until it became something far off the mark," Rizal said, in an apparent dig at Mahathir's faculties.

'Mahathir's gratuitude turned to scorn'

Rizal lamented that despite his open gratitude for having been rescued from political limbo by the late Razak, who salvaged Mahathir's political career by appointing him education minister after his expulsion from Umno in 1969, Mahathir's gratitude seemed to have turned to scorn.

"Indeed, all his gratitude, which he said cannot be forgotten, turned into words of scorn just because he failed to oust the late Abdul Razak's son, Najib," he wrote.

He asked if Mahathir was that desperate to oust Najib that he would train his guns on his late benefactor.

"Or is Mahathir intentionally trying to say that Tun Abdul Razak is useless?" Rosmah's aide further asked.

Rizsal argued that logically, no normal person would say bad things about their own parents, what more those who had long since passed away.

"All those who know Najib closely will not be able to accept the jibe thrown by Mahathir," said Rizal asking if desperation has led to Mahathir losing his judgment, and making up such slanderous statements towards the prime minister and his father.

"At least Najib succeeded in following in his father's footsteps to become prime minister, something that Mahathir's much doted on son is far from accomplishing," concluded Rizal.

Rizal's statement is the latest in a series of tit for tat exchanges engaged through the media between aides to Najib and Rosmah and critics like Mahathir.