KUALA LUMPUR: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's acts in the past have been known to hurt Umno, and fingers would ultimately be pointed at him if Umno was to suffer in the next General Election.
Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak in a blog post today questioned Dr Mahathir's loyalty to Umno, citing incidences in the past that suggested otherwise.
"Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he does not wish to destroy the party and that his loyalty to Umno and Barisan Nasional has never wavered.
"Maybe he forgot that during his quarrel with one-time Umno President and (former) Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, he resigned from Umno. Because of his personal differences with the Umno leader, he (Dr Mahathir) left the party," he said, adding that that was proof there was a time when his loyalty to the party did waver.
The Sabah deputy state Umno chief further claimed that because of Dr Mahathir's resignation and "road show" to oppose Abdullah and telling Malaysians to teach Umno and BN a lesson, Umno and BN did badly in the 2008 elections.
"The ruling party also lost five states in that election, the first time such a thing ever happened.
"How can Dr Mahathir talk about his loyalty to the party and to the coalition when his actions actually hurt the party and the coalition? The same thing is happening now and if Umno and BN do suffer in the next General Election, it will be because of what Dr Mahathir is currently doing."
The blog post continued with instances of Dr Mahathir's alleged hypocrisy, with Salleh saying that when Dr Mahathir was the Prime Minister, he did not allow what he was now saying should be allowed.
"He says it is not wrong to criticise and that the number two should criticise the number one. When Dr Mahathir was the party president and Prime Minister he did not tolerate criticism from Tun Musa Hitam and Anwar Ibrahim or even from the then Umno Youth Leader (Datuk Seri Dr) Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
"He said that there should be a proper platform for this and it should be an internal matter, not an act of washing dirty linen in public," he said.
Salleh ended the post by saying Dr Mahathir was accusing Prime Minister (Datuk Seri) Najib Razak of restructuring the party voting system so that only divisional votes counted to stay in power.
"It was Dr Mahathir who introduced the bonus vote system and the "no challenge for number one and number two" rule to prevent anyone from challenging him," he claimed.