Umar Mukhtar

Amanah's Strategy Director, Dr. Dzulkefli Ahmad, has appealed to reform-minded Malaysians to put aside all differences among them and focus on removing Najib Razak as prime minister. The reason being Najib is the biggest stumbling block to reforms in the country.

I would then go a step further. The best way to remove Najib Razak, in order to achieve the above ends, is to get rid of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and have nothing to do with him in the noble efforts by reformists to cleanse this country of the mess, which incidentally, were created by him.

We want him out of the scene, this stumbling block.

Is it because he is no longer powerful and influential that we want him out of the picture? Is it because he can no longer reach out to the pockets of the population, which the reform movement could not, and is therefore indispensable as a partner as put forth by some over-the-hill thinkers from Amanah?

Is it because we don't want to be associated with born-again democrats? Is it because he has not been elected to lead us but it was just agreed to by a handful of people who think they represent the majority of Malaysians? It is because we are not really serious about winning?

On the contrary, we are dead serious about reforms. And that's why Mahathir has to go.

There are far too many of my friends out here who are still not on the bandwagon to remove Najib yet because they say Mahathir is there. Politicians can rationalise all they want about why they are keeping him, but we true reformists know of only one thing – you do not breed poisonous snakes just for them to eat rats that are bothering you. After the rats are gone, are we to welcome the snakes into our homes to play with our babies?

Our objective is to remove all pests and not breed one pest to kill another pest. Otherwise who will remove the winning pest after the job is done? Another bigger pest? It's about time that we know how to get rid of pests ourselves.

Further, this pest has never disavowed biting humans. Are we to trust him slithering around the house hissing with his forked tongue? Are we so trusting of this snake just because he says he hates rats so much? Snakes hate rats because they compete for the same food. We hate rats because they are dirty disease-bearing scum. So we hate rats too, but that does not mean we are buddies with snakes.

It's like the perverted-thinking armchair theorists of the CIA who espoused that the best way to oust the Basheer Assad of Syria was to arm the Syrian rebels. Millions of dollars were poured in but to no avail. They were too soft according to the Americans. Some smart-ass suggested pouring of hundreds of millions of dollars more.

As intended, it was enough to attract jihadists not unlike those who fought the Russians in Afghanistan. A monster with a difference was thus created and the result is the whole world is struggling now with the richest terrorist group in the world. Basheer is still up there barrel-bombing innocent civilians but Iraq is now badly split. So much 'for the enemy of my enemy is my friend' bullshit.

Trust? Remember just before the 1999 general elections when the then PM Mahathir felt threatened by his own race? He promised Chinese voters the sky and the moon. The Chinese rallied behind him and saved his ass. After the elections he was reminded of his out of this world promises and he just shrugged his shoulders and said that he was not going to do anything about them because he only said those things to win the election. It's on record.

The gall of it all! Can you believe this Mamak? But there's a sucker born every day. And there's more coming because they would like to think that they are so smart and so sophisticated thinkers. They say that they need a powerful partner to win. But the fact is after winning, can the weak beat the powerful? And Mahathir will be installed as chief reformist? What a joke.

Remove Mahathir, the stumbling block, the obstacle to reforms, and many more will be there with you. Otherwise, naughty thoughts do cross our minds. What if Najib is kept as PM and enjoy watching Mahathir jumping around like a cat on a hot tin roof. After all, it's no loss to us. It would be the same for us if the so-called reform movement wins with Mahathir on top anyway