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Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has blamed Pakatan Harapan (PH) leaders for the coalition's downfall in early 2020.
PH was a political coalition comprising the Democratic Action Party (DAP), People's Justice Party (PKR), National Trust Party (Amanah) and Bersatu.
Why Mahathir felt he had to resign
On Feb. 3, in a blogpost, Mahathir said he felt he had to resign because Bersatu had decided to leave PH against his wishes.
However, after his resignation, the collapse of PH and his subsequent appointment by the Agong (Malaysia's king) as interim Prime Minister, Mahathir tried to form a "national unity" government, combining the support of PH and opposition MPs.
PAS and UMNO said they would support Mahathir, bringing his strength to 62.
However, PH said they would support Anwar, who had the backing of 92 MPs. In the end, neither of them could meet the threshold of 112, and therefore neither became the next Prime Minister.
Mahathir blamed veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang for supporting Anwar instead of him, saying Lim feared he was trying to become a "dictator".
Mahathir's resignation was an "egregious blunder"
Lim responded to Mahathir's remarks on Feb. 4 via his blog.
He said that PH's decision to support Anwar as PM was made unanimously by DAP, PKR and Amanah. He also labelled Mahathir's resignation in the first place as an "egregious blunder".
Lim said:
"There must be a PH prime minister and government to uphold and respect the people's mandate granted in the 2018 general election.
It is indeed unfortunate that Dr Mahathir still refuses to assume responsibility for his egregious blunder in resigning as prime minister when he had retained the support of the majority of the MPs, from Pakatan Harapan, Warisan and even Bersatu MPs."
PH fell because it chose Anwar to be PM candidate
Mahathir hit back at Lim in another blog post on Feb. 5, blaming PH for choosing Anwar over him:
"If PH still has a majority, it will not fall. PH can elect other members of the Dewan Rakyat to be the Prime Minister. Anwar Ibrahim is really interested in becoming the Prime Minister. But because PH lost the majority when I resigned, Anwar could not replace me.
[...]
What really made PH fall was choosing Anwar to be the prime minister before the Agong. If PH named me, everything that is happening now will not happen."
Mahathir also claimed that PH leaders, including Anwar, came to him to propose to elect him as PM when the Malaysian king's next nomination failed to determine the new PM.
But the plan failed to materialise as Muhyiddin Yassin was chosen as the PM after his party Bersatu found support from UMNO, Barisan Nasional, PAS and Sarawak parties.
You can read Mahathir's full blog post on his Facebook page:
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Top image from Mahathir Mohamad/FB.