‘Big mouth’ Mahathir tells it as it is

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is a habitual liar, so says former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The bitter feud between Dr Mahathir and his chosen successor does not seem to be abating at all. Mahathir is keen to keep up the attack while interestingly Abdullah prefers to keep quiet and let others to defend him.

Mahathir has once again stoked fire to the fuel by calling Abdullah a habitual liar, saying that:

"Abdullah always makes statements which are actually lies... he had developed a habit of lying...you can try and shut me up Pak Lah, but I have a big mouth and I am going to use this big mouth to expose all the misdeeds of the present government."

And he did not stop at that. Mahathir vowed to keep up his criticism, challenged Pak Lah to change or step down and promised that he will keep on talking and dared the authorities to jail him for that.

He said:

"Either he changes or he steps down...I will continue to expose all the misdeeds. They can try to shut me up. They can try to cut me out from all the media. They can try to stop me from talking....the only way they can stop me is to throw me in jail."

He said these in a hastily arranged press conference yesterday after his failure to be elected as a delegate to the November Umno AGM. He had originally planned to speak out at the AGM but now that that venue is closed, he has chosen once again to go public.

Mahathir also claimed that he lost the Saturday delegates’ election due to Abdullah’s orders to silence him. More interestingly he alleged that money politics played a role in his defeat there.

After making all the claims, the Tun flew out of the country for a 10-day overseas visit. In the meantime Abdullah has not commented on any of these but his minnows will surely have something to say, I am sure.

The next big thing will be the day Tun comes back to KL - expected to be on Sept 24. As it is, many of his supporters are planning to gather at the airport and surely, boosted by his legions of supporters, he will be tempted to increase the attack.

So lets see what else he has to say, and at the same time let us wonder as to why Pah Lak is not fighting fire with fire. Could it be because the truth hurts?

Another thing that perplexes me is that no one has sued or threatened to sue Mahathir for all the sweeping statements he has been making. Could it be that they are afraid he will reveal more in court in the event he is sued?