Dr Mahathir Mohamad has once again defended his decision to sack Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister in 1998.

The former premier said he was "responding to the situation at the time", where he went on record to describe his then heir-apparent as being morally unfit to lead the nation.

However, Mahathir did not wish to dwell on the past.

"Now it's different. If you keep on bringing up the past, you can never work with everybody.

“You will always be fighting with your enemies forever and that is bad," he said in a live Facebook session.

He was responding to Thailand's Nation Multimedia Group chairperson Suthichai Yoon who asked whether he regretted treating Anwar the way he did.

Anwar had accused Mahathir of fabricating the sodomy and abuse of power charges against him, which the former premier denied.

The two have since buried the hatchet.

Now, Mahathir believes that Anwar is “quite capable of becoming prime minister" and stressed that he would not prevent this from happening.

"If people want him, who am I to stop him?” he asked.

"But of course future prime ministers of Malaysia won't be as powerful as the present one," he said.

Pakatan Harapan had announced that it would introduce a two-term limit for the prime minister's post should it come into power.

Mahathir also said he was not embarrassed when he resorted to visiting Anwar in court last year and for the historic handshake between them.

"There are times when we have to forget the past because the future becomes very dangerous and we need to overcome the wrong things Najib have done in order to do something for the past.

"I'm not angry over the past. He (Anwar) is not angry over the past, also," added Mahathir.

'I demonised my opponents, including Kit Siang'

And what about his other former enemy DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang?

Mahathir acknowledged that he had to "demonise his opposition" when he was in the government".

"(I did) such a good job of it now he's very much disliked by people in my old party. But most people realised that he is not as bad as I made him be," admitted Mahathir.

Although Lim had always been accused of being a Chinese chauvinist, Mahathir pointed out how Lim's party was not a Chinese party.

"It's Chinese-dominant but it has members from other ethnic groups.

"He has to modify views so that he doesn't cause other ethnic groups to be unhappy," said Mahathir." 

Anwar is currently serving a five-year prison term for another sodomy conviction, which he also claims was manufactured by his political rivals. The authorities have denied this.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had called on Mahathir to explain if the latter still stood by his remarks concerning Anwar in the past.

“There are many questions in the minds of the people. First, does Mahathir stand by his old statement made in 1998 when he accused Anwar of committing unnatural acts?

“He even said Anwar was an immoral leader who could not lead the country.

“All these are major questions to the people, whether the accusations were wrong, to begin with, or he is willing to forego his principles (for the sake of politics),” he had said.

Last week, it was announced that Mahathir would serve as the chairperson of Harapan while Anwar would be the coalition's de facto leader.