Let me take this opportunity to publicly wish “Tun, happy 93rd birthday – many happy returns to build a new political legacy of democracy, justice and unity as well as Malaysia as an international top-class nation which is a "beacon of light in a disturbed and distracted world".
Many have kept asking how I could co-operate with Mahathir when in the past, for the best part of my 53 years in politics, we had been at loggerheads – for instance, with me in the opposition while Mahathir was the fourth prime minister for 22 years from 1981 to 2003. I was even detained for 18 months with (Lim) Guan Eng under the Internal Security Act during Ops Lalang, from October 1987 to April 1989.
Malaysia was placed in unparalleled peril under the sixth prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, with Malaysians ashamed to admit that they are Malaysians in the international arena because of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of becoming a global kleptocracy as a result of the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal, hurtling in the trajectory towards a failed, rogue, kakistocratic and kleptocratic state.
Nobody could be sure that Malaysia could be "saved" from Najib in the 14th general election, but a supreme effort had to be mounted, for we believe that Malaysians who want a clean, just, free, democratic and united Malaysia are more patriotic than Malaysians who are prepared to see Malaysia go down the drain to become a failed state.



