A classic case of, you can fool all of the people some of the time. Some of the people all of the time, but never ever all of the people all of the time! The defeated P.M. a patent crook, who did his very best to gerrymander his preferred outcome, could have only stayed in power through a state of emergency! But couldn't find a convenient scapegoat or ethnic minority. I expect he will do a runner with his ill-gotten gains if he's allowed! And good riddance! Alan B.

come back John Howard all is forgiven.

The old fool is 92 years old. When I typed 'fool' my spell checker changed it to 'tool'. He is probably that as well. No sane 92 year old would want to return to politics! No sane group of voters would allow him to!

Fact, only thirty percent of folk over 95 suffer from age-related dementia. Other than that many have memory lapses but still quite capable of cognitive and rational reasoning. The Dr may be aged but obviously still has most of his marbles and was the one voice all of Malaysia could unite behind. As the only means of throwing a thoroughly corrupt government out! ttbn's objections, and par for the course, abysmal ignorance notwithstanding! Alan B.

"Fact"? How do we know it's a fact without someone who knows what they a talking about demonstrates the 'fact'. That person is definitely not Alan B, who thinks he knows everything, but who is blissfully unaware that most of what he says is regarded as gibberish. Come to think of it, I just opined that the old fool was 92. I didn't say that he was demented. Perhaps Alan B is around that age and has some concerns about dementia.

Hi Alan & Ttbn,

So what are the issues here ? Some bloke's age ? The colour of his socks ? Hmmmm, perhaps not, perhaps it may have something to do with the momentous changes in Malaysia, the first time for SIXTY ONE years, for Christ sake, the first time since Independence from Britain, that there has been a change of government.

Up until now, the Malaysian government has been viciously discriminatory against non-Malays, on the bullsh!t rationale that Malays were Bumiputra, natives of the earth (forget about the tribal people up in the hills who have been there for longer than Aborigines have been here). So all sorts of special benefits have been accruing for sixty years to Malays and denied to other Malaysians, Chinese and Indians and other small groups.

Once the dodgy electoral boundaries have been re-adjusted [how do you stop a smart-arse computer from this intrusive spell-checking ?] and some of the special benefits to Malays have been wound down, perhaps we will see a properly democratic and dynamic country. Surely we can all look forward to that.

Cheers,

Joe

Joe,

None of those things. I don't give two hoots about Malaysian politics. I just find it bizarre that a 92 year old man would want to reenter politics and that the Malaysian people would permit it. I've been there a couple of times, and the Malays seem to be easy going, and there is no particularly strong Islamy feeling. No, Alan B was the problem. I rarely have the patience to read his long, ignorant diatribes; but he chose to deem me ignorant - tortured though his grammar is, I did understand it - so I returned the compliment. Simple.

There's no doubt that the outgoing PM was dirty. He is not permitted to leave the country, so he might be getting his comeuppance. And I think that old Mahathir is straight up. He's no friend of Australia, though, but that could be because Keating called him 'recalcitrant’ when both rabbits were Prime Ministers

Ttbn,

Whatev. So far, after only a couple of days, Mahathir has slapped a ban on Najib leaving the country. He's insisting that he'll observe the rule of law for everyone, including Najib. Not bad for an old bloke :)

Joe