LESS than a week into a historic general election victory, tensions are already evident as to when Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad will hand over power to Anwar Ibrahim, reports Bloomberg.

The Pakatan Harapan chairman led the coalition to its win over Barisan Nasional on May 9 and with the understanding that his former deputy, Anwar, would take over once he is granted a royal pardon and could be elected as member of parliament.

However, Dr Mahathir has not set a time frame as to when he would hand over power.

On Saturday after, PKR, Anwar’s party with the highest number of seats in PH, accused the prime minister of bulldozing his initial cabinet picks.

“The lack of a fixed timetable to pass on the baton to Anwar is a key source of political risk,” Hugo Brennan, a Jakarta-based senior Asia analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

“There is likely to be a deal of early goodwill between the pair, given the historic nature of the election outcome. The question is to what extent this can be maintained over the longer term.”

Dr Mahathir said yesterday PH is following through its promise to get a royal pardon for Anwar, adding that “the process and procedure will be followed and there might be slight delays”.

The prime minister is instead focusing on moves to scrap the goods and services tax, review infrastructure projects and cut the public sector debt.

Dr Mahathir sacked his deputy almost 20 years ago and only made up publicly when the former turned up in court in 2016 at Anwar’s second sodomy trial. – May 15, 2018.