Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has described Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the “patron saint of political comebacks.”

This was following Mahathir's speech at the Asia Society in New York, where the 93-year-old leader is attending the UN general assembly.

An impressed Rudd, who moderated the event, called it a “bravura performance”, according to an Associated Press news report.

The report also stated that “for a few seconds, Mahathir looked his age” but the moment he started talking, the years were shaved off.

“The once and current prime minister of Malaysia wobbled a bit as he clasped the railing, cautiously mounted the four stairs leading to the stage in the bowels of the Asia Society and shuffled over to the podium.

“Then Mahathir, called a strongman by his critics so often that he has a joke ready about it, faced the packed auditorium. He smiled broadly and began talking. And the years, maybe even a decade or two, seemed to melt away.

“First came the speech: 20 minutes without a single note, relying on the wealth of experience that led one audience member to address him as 'the elder statesman of Asia - actually, the elder statesman of the planet',” AP added.

The report stated that Mahathir also cracked jokes and had the audience in stitches.

“He rattled off figures related to debt and spending and demonstrated a fluency with government and international policies that date back decades.

“He converted currencies on the fly. He spoke with ease about the importance of social media in his upset win in the May elections that led to the nation's first change of party power since independence from Britain in 1957.

“After more than an hour of back and forth with the audience, he looked disappointed that it had ended. His demeanour was that of a man who relished returning to a job he never expected to have again,” it added.

Mahathir was also quizzed on his physical and political stamina, to which he replied: "I don't really know."

Acknowledging that he had two heart operations and suffered from occasional coughs, he said: “But I have my doctor following me everywhere I go".

Summing up his performance, the AP report said: “He tapped into a deep vein of knowledge and experience won from being a high-level political player in Asia and the world for the last seven decades”.

“Though he dodged the occasional thorny topic - a question about gay rights and child marriage in Malaysia, for instance - he deftly handled almost everything thrown at him,” it added.