GOVERNMENTS that had had a prickly relationship with Malaysia under Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s previous government must not stop engaging with the country on account of his past as an authoritarian leader, an opinion piece in the Nikkei Asian Review said.

They should not assume that Dr Mahathir, who was the fourth and now seventh prime minister, would “resurrect old dreams and grudges” as he was now in a different Malaysia with different cabinet colleagues who will hold him to institutional reform.