Mahathir: Gov't weak, yes, but don't please extremists

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has described the current government as "weak", but warned that should not be a reason for it accede to extremists in the country.

He said in a bid to regain support, the government had already looked into the demands of such people, but yet did not receive the support they sought.

"What we see today is a weak government because it did not get strong support from the people.

"With weakness there is tendency to accede to the demands of extremists in the opposition and having acceded, still find no support for the government," he said in a speech in Putrajaya this morning.
Mahathir added that any demands made by these “extremists” were in fact aimed at toppling the government.

“If the government responds by saying okay, what you say is correct, if you find something offensive we will get rid of it, the extremists will not say ‘thank you very much, we will support you’.

“The extremists aim is to unseat the government and if they have an issue they will cling on to it and if you solve it, they will come up with another issue.

“They will still feel dissatisfied and will not support the authority that granted their wish,” he said.

Therefore, he said the government stood to gain nothing by accommodating to such “extremists”.

‘Reactionary extremists’

Mahathir said that the actions of these “extremists” were also prompting reactions from extremists in other communities.

“For example, if the Chinese extremists are not happy about education, they will make unreasonable demands and the majority who are moderates will not say anything as they fear being negatively labelled.

“As a response, the extremists from the other side will answer but the moderates on that side will also not say anything for fear of becoming a target,” he said.

After the 2008 general election, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had reached out to previous quarters in a bid to recover support, including controversial Chinese educationist groups Dong Zong.

However, Najib led BN to a worse performance in 2013 in which he described the the general election as a “Chinese tsunami”.

During a question and answer session later, Mahathir was asked if DAP could form the government, to which he replied that it was unlikely as DAP was too Chinese-centric.

“DAP appeals only to the Chinese and fights for issues like Chinese education, things like that will never attract more than 50 percent of the population’s support,” he said.

He added that even if DAP were to team up with PKR and PAS, it would still be a fragile government as they were not cohesive.