INTERVIEW | As Bersatu celebrates its second anniversary today, party chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad has warned that it could be rejected by voters as had happened to Umno if its leaders adopt self-serving ways of the old party.

The 93-year-old prime minister said that such practices could also lead to Bersatu's exit from the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition once he is no longer around.

"What ruined Umno was corruption and other practices. If we become a party that is consumed by greed, we know we will be rejected by the people.

"So our lifespan will be determined by how sincere we are in fighting against corruption. If they do good things (when I'm no longer around), I think they will last (in Harapan).

"If they are influenced by the Umno culture of fighting for themselves, 'what do I get', they won't last; Bersatu will go the way of Umno," Mahathir said in a joint interview with Malaysiakini and Sinar Harian at the Perdana Leadership foundation on Thursday.

He added that the party will strive hard to change the mindsets of party members to prioritise combating corruption.

Bersatu was formed two years ago as Mahathir and other party rebels in Umno fought against then party president and prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, primarily over the 1MDB scandal.

On May 9, together with Harapan and Parti Warisan Sabah, the Umno splinter group ousted its former party and the BN coalition to form the new federal government.

However, despite denouncing Umno, Mahathir revealed that he still had a soft spot for the party which he once led for more than two decades, and that he was still an Umno man at heart.

"Umno is a good and noble party... My soul is still that of Umno's, but when they got involved in corruption, deviated from its struggles… I can't tie myself to the party after it became a party led by someone accused of being a thief.

"It would be wrong for me to remain and continue supporting Umno after it has deviated so far from its original struggle," the nonagenarian said.

In the following excerpts, Mahathir discusses Bersatu's plans to set up shop in Sarawak and other issues. The excerpts have been translated and edited for brevity.

Question: Bersatu is planning to expand to Sarawak. What can the party offer to Sarawakians?

Mahathir: At first we didn't plan to go to Sarawak because we believed the bumiputera there had a different stand to ours.

But after we were established, the bumiputera there asked why we weren't in Sarawak. Now, there is a large-scale movement to set up Bersatu there.

But in Sarawak, there is the issue of autonomy, Sarawak for Sarawakians and so on. How is Bersatu, as a peninsula party, going to deal with that?

Mahathir: Yes, there is that sentiment that peninsula parties shouldn't go to Sarawak. But we find that peninsula parties that are in Sarawak can win.

So not everyone believes that they are separate from the peninsula. Many believe cooperation with peninsula parties is important for their interests in Sarawak.

With Bersatu celebrating its second anniversary, in your opinion, what is the party's importance to the Malays and Malaysia?

Mahathir: Even though we are only two years old, our performance and achievements do not show how young we are. We have worked hard to inform the Malays especially that we are a Malay party and not a mixed (race) party.

But as with Umno before, who worked with parties of other races; we too work with multiracial parties.

So we find that with this cooperation, we can influence them to focus on a (specific) goal and forget past quarrels.

Because we succeeded in cooperating, we received the people's support and we got a strong victory - even if it wasn't two-thirds majority, BN could not avoid admitting defeat.

This shows that Bersatu's participation had an effect to bring down a cruel kleptocratic government headed by Najib Abdul Razak.

This interview was jointly conducted by Haris Mohd, Lu Wei Hoong, Norman Goh, Zikri Kamarulzaman and Sinar Harian.

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