UMNO and PAS wanted DAP’s Lim Guan Eng removed as the finance minister and Tommy Thomas ousted as the attorney-general before agreeing to join the unity government mooted by Dr Mahathir Mohamad last February.

The idea of appointing ministers and deputy ministers from parties across the political divide did not come to pass and was sandwiched between Dr Mahathir’s decision to quit as the prime minister of the Pakatan Harapan government and the fall of the PH administration two years into its five-year term.

Thomas called Dr Mahathir’s resignation indefensible and laid much of the fall of PH squarely on his shoulders.

He lifted the veil on events that led to Dr Mahathir’s resignation and his scrambling to remain in power in his memoirs titled My Story: Justice in the Wilderness.

Let’s state the obvious first: Tommy Thomas will not make any friend with his memoirs of his 22-months as the attorney-general under PH.

Because he writes the way he speaks: with words that sting and which convey an absolute self-belief that his opinions matter and that the person on the other end of the argument is plain wrong, daft or both.

Because in the evening of his life, one senses that Thomas feels that it is his last opportunity to get stuff that has been eating at him for a while.

Stuff like Malaysia’s endemic racism that has paralysed any effort to reform this beloved land. Stuff like the double-speak of politicians who clamour for all sorts of change when they are not in power but lose all gumption when in office.

So out with niceties. Or sugar-coating statements. Or thinking of consequences of what an insider’s account of the PH government could mean personally and professionally for him? From the outset, he kept a diary with the purpose of publishing his time in office as the A-G.

He kept notes on everything from the nuts and bolts of preparing to prosecute Najib Razak for the 1MDB scandal to the decision to drop charges to the treacherous days that led to Umno and PAS coming to power as Perikatan Nasional.

Thomas wrote that after Dr Mahathir resigned as the prime minister on February 24, the Agong proceeded to act constitutionally by wanting to appoint Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the interim PM.

This move would have allowed the PH coalition to elect its new candidate for the office of the PM and to continue governing Malaysia, noted Thomas.

Strangely, Dr Mahathir put forward his name as the interim PM. Strange because usually when a PM resigns, he walks into the sunset.

In this instance, Dr Mahathir wanted to remain the power but seemingly without the people who won the election with him in 2018.

In addition to wanting to become the interim PM, Dr Mahathir also asked the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to revoke the appointments of all ministers and deputies – decisions that he hoped would pave the way for the unity government.

Thomas met Dr Mahathir on February 25 and the then interim PM informed the A-G that he had met leaders of all the political parties and they wanted him to remain as the PM.

“I immediately asked: All 222 members of parliament? Tun responded in the affirmative. Tun had told each leader that he should submit to Tun the names of his supporters whom he wished to be in the cabinet. The cabinet would comprise ministers from all parties: hence, it would be a unity government… party positions would not matter for cabinet appointments. Tun would have a complete free hand. He said that he had told both Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng that they might not be selected for the new cabinet,” said Thomas.

Then came another bombshell.

Umno and PAS wanted him and Lim out.

Both parties were incensed with Thomas over his decision to drop all charges against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) suspects.

“According to them, this was a racist decision on my part. Tun said that I would have to leave. Tun said that he would not renew my contract when it expired in June 2020, some three months away.”

More surprises were to follow, but this time for Dr Mahathir.

On February 25, he said that he had the complete support of all MPs but a day later, the king interviewed the MPs and only 62 supported Dr Mahathir. Some 92 supported Anwar and the rest abstained.

The unity government plan was dead.

Thomas wrote that the penny had dropped for party leaders who had spoken to Dr Mahathir the day before. After spending years ascending the political ladder, they would have found it unacceptable not to be in the cabinet.

Dr Mahathir had misread the situation and made elementary mistakes, Thomas said, calling his decisions to resign as PM, stay on as the interim PM and dismiss the cabinet as an own goal of massive significance.

Thomas recalled that he had more than 50 one-to-one sessions with Dr Mahathir but yet, did not really know the man.

So why did he go down the path he did in those fateful days in February last year? Did he resign because of the incessant pressure to hand over power to Anwar? Or was he tired of the dysfunctional nature of PH? Or was he spooked by the defections taking place at that time?

Thomas wrote: “No one is more self-serving and economical with the truth than a politician. Establishing a truthful narrative and sequence of events in that terribly dynamic and fluid environment are task for a scholar of political science or history, with the skills of Sherlock Holmes. It is beyond the scope of this work.”

Critics of Thomas will lash him by alleging that he used his privileged position to betray confidence on events and individuals that should have been kept under wraps.

Some will say that he is being unfair to his PH friends, a few of them who supported his appointment as the A-G even when the knives were out for him.

Others will claim that Thomas wrote the memoirs to burnish his legacy as the A-G.

This book was always going to be controversial and polarising because he touches on politics and racism – two issues that continue to make Malaysians behave with antagonism and even hate towards each other.

And Thomas doesn’t hold back, giving an unvarnished take on an unprecedented period in recent Malaysian history and its main actors.

The result: a riveting book. – January 31, 2021.