ANWAR Ibrahim does not have  get the support of the majority of Malays because of his liberal politics claimed ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In an interview with Malay daily Sinar Harian, the former Bersatu chairman said Malays could not accept liberalism as an ideology as they are afraid of losing political power.

“If we look back, when he left Umno while I was the prime minister (in 1998) he had formed a party to fight me,” Dr Mahathir said, referring to Parti Keadilan Nasional.

“When Ku Li (Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah) left Umno to form Semangat 46 (in 1988) that party was a Malay party. Anwar left Umno and formed a liberal party,” Dr Mahathir said.

“He wanted to get DAP’s support, he invited DAP. PAS also joined. His philosophy was liberal.”

Keadilan eventually merged with PRM to form PKR, which is one of the founding component members of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, along with DAP, Amanah and Bersatu.

Semangat 46, the Malay party, was disbanded after 1995 and its leaders have all rejoined Umno.

Dr Mahathir was prime minister until the coalition was betrayed by his party Bersatu and 11 PKR MPs.

The renegade MPs had left to form a new Perikatan Nasional government with opposition parties Umno and PAS. As a consequence Dr Mahathir’s resignation, Bersatu president Muhyiddin Yassin had been appointed prime minister

Muhyiddin had helped Dr Mahathir to establish Bersatu.

In the interview published today, Dr Mahathir said he had put aside two decades of enmity with Anwar in order to defeat former Umno president Najib Razak and the Barisan Nasional in the 14th general election in 2018.

“I admit I had problems with Anwar. When I was Umno president, Anwar was ejected from the party and he was jailed.

“When I was trying to bring down Najib, I thought that between Najib and Anwar, Najib was the more dangerous.

“So I was willing to go back to Anwar. In fact I was willing to cooperate with the DAP.  Otherwise, we would not have been able to defeat BN in GE14”. – March 12, 2020.