In his latest blog post, Mahathir pointed out that a Bloomberg report had claimed that there were 60 projects in the region involving the construction of up to half million homes.
Conservatively, Mahathir estimated that this amount of homes would house 1.5 million people.
“Who will be staying in these sky scrappers? Does it make sense for the 1.5 million Johoreans – Malay, Chinese and Indians – move into these luxury dwellings? It does not.
“But having 1.5 million foreigners stay near Johor Bahru does make sense. Apparently, they are supposed to stay for three months during the winter. But was there an agreement on this?
“Can you imagine 700,000 people flying into Johor for three months and the same 700,000 leave after that, leaving the Iskandar region empty for nine months.
“Now imagine 1.5 million people emptying the city, apartments, shops and factories for nine months. Johor Bahru will be quiet. Does that make sense?” wrote Mahathir.
MB rubbishes Dr M's claims
Recently, Mahathir had told a ceramah in Krubung, Malacca that 700,000 people from China will be given Malaysia identity cards that would allow them to vote in the next general election.
He alleged that this was part of the deal sought by Putrajaya during the highly publicised state visit to China. Mahathir claimed that these 700,000 people would be housed in Forest City, which is part of the Iskandar Malaysia region.
According to the same Bloomberg report, the developers of Forest City are actively wooing Chinese investors. The report also claimed that AirAsia added a Johor Bahru-Guangzhou route in April to accommodate visiting Chinese investors.
Following this, Johor Menteri Besar Mohamed Khaled Nordin rubbished Mahathir's allegations on grounds that the Forest City project would be rolled out in 30 years.
While he agreed that there might be 700,000 foreigners residing in Johor 30 years later, it was impossible for all of them to be from China.
Khaled claimed that Forest City was being marketed the world over, including Australia and the Middle East, and not just China alone.
'Merdeka for Iskandar'
Meanwhile, continuing with his hypothetical scenario for Johor, Mahathir asked if these newcomers had decided to stay long term, would the Johor menteri besar be able to make them leave?
“If you can't chase them out, what is their status? What happens if they want to be permanent residents? What if they want to be citizens? What if they are quietly being given Malaysian identity cards before the next election?
“To Khaled, I say congratulations. You will have 1.5 million foreigners surrounding you. Apparently they won't be made citizens, but they will be your neighbours,” said Mahathir.
However, having that many new neighbours may come with certain dangers, he warned.
“With 1.5 million foreigners in Johor, you will have a problem. See what happened to Singapore. Just because the composition of its population was different from Malaysia, we have to remove Singapore from Malaysia.
“When Johor Bahru is surrounded by 1.5 million foreigners, what if we (have to) merdekakan (grant independence) to the Iskandar region? God forbid,” wrote Mahathir.
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