COMMENT | Malaysians with more than a cursory familiarity with the recent history of the country are apt to blame Dr Mahathir Mohamad for how Prime Minister Najib Razak’s administration has turned out.

They contend Malaysia’s fourth prime minister seeded the bed from which emerged the kleptocratic phenomenon of the sixth PM they decry and want the country rid of.

Some among this cohort would like Mahathir to go through the ritual, if not the very substance, of public contrition for having been a Najib-enabler before he assumes to be a Najib-remover.

True, many from this same group are amazed at the energy of a man, who in his 10th decade of life, is willing himself to go through the rigours and exactions of removing an incumbent PM, with all the advantages - to which Mahathir contributed enormously during his long PM-tenancy - accuring to the present holder.

Yet, the same bedazzled crowd want to see some sign of remorse from Mahathir before they find credible the notion of him as extricator of the country from the predicament he is faulted for spawning.

Judging from the outcome yesterday of a dialogue session between Mahathir and a slew of Old Putras - the moniker for alumni of the Royal Military College - held at the Perdana Leadership Foundation (PLF), these doubting Thomases are on a hiding to nothing.

All they will get from Mahathir are laments about his “failure” to change the work ethics of the Malays. Nothing more.

Apparently, there will be no mea cuplas for what he did to the judiciary, none for the Memali fatalities, or a host of other blemishes on his chequered record, like the
legitimisation of the influx of migrants into Sabah.

Ingratitude towards their great leaders is the mark of strong peoples, observed the Roman writer Plutarch.

At yesterday’s dialogue, one would have to be obstreperous or downright discourteous to subject Mahathir to a sharp and unceremonius inquisition of his 22-year track record as Malaysia’s fourth PM.

The ‘budak boys’, another sobriquet for RMC alumni, are loath to be rude.

In the event’s promotionals, the dialogue was billed as a ‘come and ask-tough- questions’ session...